Cataclysm
by crisis what crisis
Summary: Nick Fury seeks the help of 'Girl Doomsday', a young woman imprisoned for her destructive power, in the hopes of fighting alongside his "super secret boy band". However, there is a reason why oil and water don't mix, and in Rilla's case, her chance for freedom could cost much more than what Fury bargained for. Banner/OC. On hiatus for a while.
1. Good Morning Starshine

I do not own anything from the Marvel Franchise.

**Summary**: Nick Fury recruits the imprisoned subject 'Girl Doomsday' to be part of his Avengers Initiative in order to stop Loki and the Chitauri. However, Rilla struggles with controlling her powers as well as her past and the guilt from it.

Hi guys, I usually write Walking Dead fanfic but this idea's been inside my mind for a while now and I just bought the Avengers DVD the other day so I have inspiration!

* * *

**Good Morning Starshine**

"Congratulations, _Marilla Cain_, on your birthday. Dinner tonight is chicken pot pie, crescent rolls, and a glass of Dr. Pepper. For dessert, three Oreo cookies and a glass of milk," the familiar robotic voice echoed inside Marilla Cain's chamber as the woman approached the table in the room and sat down. A few seconds later, two women in lab coats served her dinner as Rilla grabbed her knife and fork and began to dig into her meal. Most Friday nights would involve partying after a long week of work and getting out and enjoying the night life. For Rilla, it was eating meals inside a 12x13 room and forced to wear a metal visor attached to her cranium to prevent her accessing the part of her brain that helped control her 'talents'.

Today was Rilla's twenty-third birthday and this was the same birthday meal she had last year. And the year before. And so on.

"You have a visitor," the speaker over the intercom coolly told Rilla as she shrugged, lifting a forkful of her chicken pot pie as she awaited this so-called visitor. Rilla was immediately suspicious because nobody ever visited her.

In stepped a tall black man with an eye patch and she almost wanted to call him a pirate. He was wearing all black and he had a solemn but conserved expression on his face as he entered her cell and sat in a chair adjacent to where Rilla was sitting. He didn't say anything at first. He was probably studying her and making sure she was whoever he wanted to see.

"Who are you?" Rilla asked, setting down her utensil as she turned her head towards the man. He was interrupting her regularly scheduled dinner.

"You must be Marilla Cain. I'm Nick Fury and I'm here to offer you freedom."

Rilla snorted, almost tasting the chicken in her throat as she looked at him incredulously, raising a brow at his offer. He didn't seem so amused by her reaction but honestly, did he expect her to say "Yes, take me with you!" so easily?

"It's Rilla," she corrected him, "and I don't believe you."

The curve of his lip folded as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I find that hard to believe, Rilla. You really wanna be in this cell for the rest of your life?" he asked her.

Rilla frowned as she relaxed her shoulders, a sign of allowing the man to continue talking as she leaned forward onto the table. "So, what do I have to do for you that involves me leaving this place and getting this contraption off my head?"

"I have this _project_ and I think you'd be a great addition for it. My team could use someone with your...abilities. If you do decide to join me, I promise you won't have to eat, sleep and breathe in this room ever again." Even with just one eye, his gaze was piercing her own eyes and something told her he was hiding a lot more than what he was saying. Even though Rilla was used to this room she called home, this strange man's offer was tantalizing.

She had lived in this cell for about four years now ever since the accident. Rilla was told she was a "threat to the American people" and that locking her away was a security measure to protect people, so really she was actually saving people by being inside. It just wasn't quite the kind of protection or saving Rilla imagined.

"Okay, I'm in," she accepted.

Nick Fury held out his hand and Rilla followed as they shook hands on their agreement. Rilla could hear beeping sounds as two scientists entered the chamber and removed the visor from her head. She rubbed her temples, how sore they felt from constantly wearing that inhibitor. Looking over her shoulder, Rilla took one last glance at what she had called home for a long time. It was time for Girl Doomsday to finally leave this stupid underground prison and say good morning starshine to the rest of the world.

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Fury's second in command, Maria Hill, was walking alongside her boss, asking why on earth Nick Fury a) went somewhere unauthorized and didn't tell her where he was going and b) recruited a dangerous rogue to their misshapen team that she was already having uneasy concerns about.

"With what we're dealing with, Agent Hill, we could use someone with her abilities," Fury plainly stated, ignoring the insistent pleas of Hill.

"But don't you even remember what happened four years ago with her?" she declared, "why she was even in that cell in the first place?"

Fury had to turn himself around in order to see her fully as he answered, "Yes. I do. And this time around, shit won't hit the fan."

Hill was left in the middle of the monitoring room, the sounds of beeping computers and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents running around. She sighed heavily as she muttered, "Shit's going to hit the fan with or without her help."

* * *

Rather short for a first chapter but this is more to test the waters and see if people like it. I hope Fury and Hill are in character, I always imagine Hill to be rather exasperated with Fury because he just barges through the red tape.


	2. Question For the Ages

I do not own anything from the Marvel Franchise.

Holy crepes, I didn't expect that much of a reception! I'm glad the first chapter got such a great response, it makes me really happy, you have nooo idea. It only encourages me to type the next chapter even faster :) This chapter focuses on Rilla getting adjusted to SHIELD and meeting Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Oodles of fun.

* * *

**Question For the Ages**

Rilla looked at her reflection in a small compact mirror, hazel eyes staring back at her. Using her index finger, she gingerly traced the shaved side of her head. In order for the metal visor device to work, she was told, they had to buzz off hair from the left side of her head so the pressure grip of the visor could be as close to her brain as possible. In other terms, she looked hella weird. Or at least she believed herself to be. She had pretty chin-length brown hair once but after the incident, she had regularly mandated haircuts to keep her hair as short as possible. She had to argue to her last breath to keep at least some hair on her head so she didn't look like a cancer patient.

She definitely didn't look normal. Rilla was all angles and sharp edges; her bone structure was like a wire frame used for sculpture class. Four years underground did that to a human, even with the special lights that mimicked the sun and its vitamin D.

It was strange, living on the helicarrier, being able to actually walk out onto the base and stand outside. Nick Fury decided she should live there temporarily due to her having no real home. Not like she could live in a dorm or go back to her parent's house. Agent Hill had assigned her a small compartment, much smaller than her chamber at the underground facility, so really she traded one cell for another. This room, however, felt different. On the small bed was a folded uniform customized specifically for her as Rilla changed into them. It was a little loose but she tucked in the shirt and tightened the belt as far as it would go. Instead of the blues most of the SHIELD agents wore, she was wearing a combination of dark brown and red. Not really her favorite colors (she liked blue and yellow the most) but she could make do.

"Miss Cain?" Agent Coulson knocked on her door, "Fury wants you outside."

"Okay." Rilla liked Coulson, he seemed pretty nice and dependable. Agent Hill was alright but she was bit too by-the-book for her tastes. She had told Coulson and Hill multiple times to just call her Rilla but it didn't seem to get through.

"Nevermind, change of plans," Coulson quickly added as he waited for Rilla to exit the room. "We're going on a trip to visit Tony Stark."

Rilla tilted her head to the side, not recognizing the name Tony Stark.

Coulson blinked a couple times, surprised that Rilla wasn't familiar with THE Tony Stark, THE IRON MAN. Then again, she had literally lived in a cave for a couple years. Probably had terrible newsfeed down there. "Oh, well, _don't_ tell him that. He'd never stop telling you about himself."

* * *

"Sir, Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D is on the line and he's insisting on talking to you," the posh robotic voice of JARVIS reminded Tony Stark as the man was walking down a literal runway, his suit dissembling with every step.

"I'm not in. I'm actually out. On a date. Not that Coulson would know what that is," Stark remarked, ignoring JARVIS despite the voice's pleas. The world could stay saved for five freaking minutes, couldn't it? He had a hot date with a hot lady, and that lady was Miss Pepper Potts.

.

.

"I don't think he wants us to drop by," Rilla commented as the two rode the elevator up to the penthouse floor of Tony Stark, "or really, you."

Coulson smiled as he pressed some buttons on his phone as it began to override JARVIS' software as the agent spoke into the phone. "Stark, we need to talk."

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message," he spoke without missing a beat. Coulson wasn't so amused but Rilla was. Tony could hear giggling on the phone.

"This is urgent, Stark," Coulson responded as the elevator doors began to part, asking Rilla to hand over the black electronic file keeper she had been holding onto.

"Nice pad," Rilla commented on the penthouse, stepping out of the elevator before she saw the stunned face of who she assumed to be Tony Stark. A blonde woman was seated next to him, curious about her presence but then saw Agent Coulson.

"Phil, come in. And who's your guest?" she greeted pleasantly, while Tony stood up almost immediately.

"Oh no, we're not here to stay. This is Marilla Cain, a new, uh, agent." he held out his hand to introduce Rilla to Pepper and Tony. Pepper smiled at Rilla while Tony had a slight frown on his face. _It must be my hair_, she thought to herself.

Tony could have sworn he heard the last name Cain before, and no, not from that fairy tale collection called the Bible. She looked vaguely familiar too. Weird. Too odd for Tony to keep focusing on. He wanted Coulson out of here.

"Phil? Uh, his first name is Agent," Stark pointed out, still holding his glass of wine or champagne or whatever alcoholic drink Rilla could think of. "What is it, Bring Your Daughter to Work Night? We're celebrating so you two should skedaddle," he made a dismissive motion with his hands.

"I'm not even related to him," Rilla corrected Tony but he didn't appreciate that all too much.

Pepper switched hands with Coulson as she took the black files from Coulson and handed him a drink, who then gave the drink to Rilla. She didn't know what else to do with it so she just drank it. Nice and bubbly. Good thing she wasn't driving.

"Aren't you too young to be drinking that?" Tony frowned.

"I'm twenty-three, not fourteen," she rolled her eyes. No wonder she hadn't heard of Tony Stark before. He was kind of a douchebag. How that Pepper woman was with him was a question for the ages.

"Official consulting hours are between 8 and 5 every other Thursday. The next available appointment time is," he pretended to look down at his imaginary watch, "oh, never."

Rilla smirked. She had to admit, that statement was kind of funny. Coulson didn't seem fazed at all as he replied with "This isn't a consultation."

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper simply asked. Tony seem surprised she even knew what the Avengers Initiative was and even Rilla wasn't expecting that sentence from Pepper. "That I know nothing about."

Nick Fury had told Rilla on the flight to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier about his special project, the Avengers Initiative. That's why she was wearing the uniform. Of course she accepted the part but she felt uneasy about it. It was like he wasn't telling her the whole story.

"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, or so I thought. I didn't even qualify for it. Apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, doesn't play well with others."

Rilla snorted loudly. "Who could tell?" she boldly spoke, earning a glare from Stark as Pepper cracked a smile at Rilla's statement.

She wasn't sure what to think of Tony Stark. He could make a wisecrack or two but he definitely didn't have a filter in his head and rather rude towards Coulson and even her. Was he really going to be part of the team she was on?

"Stark, this isn't about personality profiles," Coulson maintained as he looked over to his guest and kind of raised his brows as Tony Stark called over his lady as the man began semi-whispering about having their moment ruined or whatever. In a matter of seconds, Rilla suddenly saw the room light up with holographic screens of videos displayed around the room, Rilla leaning her head forward and squinting her eyes to catch the footage. She saw a green guy trample stuff, a man shoot arrows and a red white and blue symbol. Fury hadn't really disclosed much info about the rest of these 'Avengers'.

Coulson bowed his head as Rilla could see he was slightly embarrassed being a third wheel in the room. Rilla assumed Pepper was bribing Tony into doing his "homework".

"Are you sure I'll be working with this guy?" she pointed to Stark, half-serious when she asked Coulson. He merely nodded as the two exited Stark Towers, agreeing to give Pepper Potts a lift to LaGuardia.

* * *

Stark reviewed the footage of the files he was sent, looking over the blue holographic text and thin boxes of information that shined in the middle of the air in his penthouse. He recognized the Hulk (who he was a fan of), Captain America (some frozen guy), Black Widow (aka his former assistant) and Clint Barton, who had been compromised and therefore not really part of the Avengers right now.

Obviously there was tons of info on him, Tony Stark, and with this he was much pleased. He scrolled through some videos. There were some great angles of him in the air but something gnawed at him so he exited out of his file and typed in 'Cain, Marilla'. Nada.

"JARVIS, look up any information on Marilla Cain. There's literally zilch here. Isn't Fury supposed to keep up with his super secret boy band?" he placed his hand under his chin, reading up on the Tesseract and this dude who looked like a Ren fair gone wrong. And his brother, Thor.

"Searching now..." JARVIS computed.

He had heard that name before. And whoever she was, it was no coincidence that Fury would want her in the Avengers Initiative. Minutes later, JARVIS confirmed he found something as Tony waited for the file to download.

"_Found it_," Tony said in a sing-song voice as he began reading the previously coded and confidential file of Marilla Ruby Cain, prisoner 'Girl Doomsday'.

* * *

Captain America, or Steve Rogers, was sitting right next to her, watching a video of the green mutant called the Hulk. Every now and then she would lean over to watch the footage and he would adjust the device so they could both look at this Bruce Banner guy. Rilla would have never put two and two together. Then again, most people wouldn't put two and two together with her powers. So far nobody had mentioned anything much about her aside from her name and that she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Not that she really wanted to mention it unless she absolutely had to.

"Visiting him was interesting, to say the least. Did you really know his dad?" the two were currently discussing Tony Stark and his father, trying not to barrage the man with silly questions. That was Coulson's job.

From what Coulson had enthusiastically explained to her, Captain America was really the first American superhero. Coulson also stated multiple times that he had priceless vintage set of Captain America playing cards. That part she didn't really care about but wow, a guy submerged in ice for almost 70 years? Made sense. He had a very 40s demeanor about him. He even looked like he popped out of a WWII movie.

"Yes, I did," he simply answered but he gave her a small reserved smile as the two continued to watch videos of the Hulk. All that rage, all that destructive power...it certainly rang a bell. Maybe a bell too similar sounding.

Steve looked up at her, the two sitting on the same side of the Quinjet as they were informed they were only forty minutes away from home base as he asked her, "What did you say you could do?"

"Uh," she sputtered out. _Shit, did Fury even tell anybody about what I am capable of?_, she panicked inside her mind. Before she could answer, Steve got distracted as Coulson began telling him that Banner had tried to replicate the serum that made Steve Rogers Captain America and that he believed gamma radiation held the key. Rilla's frown became lopsided. Poor guy.

"The guy's like a regular Steven Hawking," Coulson tried to explain to Steve but Steve drew a blank. This time, Rilla knew the reference as she took it upon herself to tell Steve.

"He's a really, really smart person," she stressed. Steve nodded, sort of getting the picture. She only missed pop culture references in four years, he had nearly 7 decades to catch up on, and that was basically the span of pop culture anyway so he was even more out of the loop.

"I sort of met you. I watched you while you were sleeping," Coulson's sentence distracted Rilla as she tried to hold back a laugh but failed. That totally didn't sound creepy. It was kind of cute though. Coulson had an idol to look up to.

She didn't really have anyone to call a role model. Fury gave her freedom but she had hardly seen him since he brought her to the helicarrier. Probably doing important top secret stuff, as usual. She should be used to secrets by now but she wasn't.

* * *

Well, here we go. Chapter Two. I thought this was a good ending point before we get to the rest of the Avengers team. Hopefully I kept everyone in character. Watching the movie and pausing it during dialogue scenes certainly helps, hehe. And for those who are itching to know what powers Rilla have, I suppose you have to wait just a little bit longer ;) As for Banner's intro, oh boy I'm typing it out as I type this.

Thank you so much for the reviews and faves and everything. I'm very excited to really delve into Rilla's involvement with the Avengers and not treat her like a Mary Sue or whatever.


	3. A Real Superhero

I do not own the Marvel franchise.

as promised, here's chapter three. A major villain of this fic is introduced, Rilla's powers are finally revealed and there's Steve, Natasha, Bruce. Enjoy!

* * *

**A Real Superhero**

Director Peter Laroche was signing off on some important legal documents when the news reached him. Frankly, as _the_ director of the Nevada Secure Underground Research Facility (or NSURF as most people named it), he should have been informed in the first place when a visitor wanted to visit room 223. That would have been a red flag immediately because nobody wanted to visit that prisoner. It was his assistant Nichelle that reported a Director Nick Fury had come in and literally taken 'Girl Doomsday' away.

He slammed the papers on his desk as the coffee in his mug splattered all over the desk. He needed a new desk anyway.

"What do you mean he just took her out?" he strained through his teeth.

"Uh, sir, he was from SHIELD. He was able to bypass all the red tape," she squeaked out, hoping she wouldn't lose her job over this mis-communication.

He was familiar with SHIELD but never directly interacted with the organization. Not until now, anyway.

"Goddamnit," he muttered as he shooed Nichelle out of his office. After calming himself down, he readjusted his sunglasses and continued to sign his name on papers. He had to think this through first. SHIELD was on a higher level than NSURF and he simply couldn't just barge in and ask for Girl Doomsday back.

Laroche still remembered the first day they took her in.

* * *

**_Flashback, four years earlier_  
**

_Back then Peter Laroche was still Agent Laroche and not yet the Director of NSURF. His predecessor had paged him to meet the NSURF scientist Dr. Trina Foulkes in the medical bay of the compound. Marilla Cain had been knocked out with a tranquilizer in Sawsgreene County, Virginia and was starting to wake up. Laroche quickly hurried to the room as he met the scientist and the girl in the hospital bed._

_"Do you know why you're here, Marilla?" Dr. Foulkes asked the patient. Rilla blinked a couple of times, her eyes adjusting to the artificial light as she yawned loudly._

_"I...it's Rilla"._

_"Do you remember anything at all?" Laroche asked her but with a push in his tone. He hadn't the patience for this._

_Laroche looked at the young woman. She had chin length slightly wavy brown hair and round hazel eyes. Petite. Not quite the type he expected when Director Dieffenbach alerted him of the situation. A young girl couldn't have that much power in her tiny frame?_

_"I was out in a field in Sawsgreene County," she forced out. "And I was floating above the ground."_

_The scientist wrote down Rilla's responses on her clipboard as the young woman groaned, her hand gripping the handles of the hospital bed. Laroche kept observing her, trying to determine if she was just faking it or hiding her side of the story._

_"We had to tranquilize you," the scientist explained matter-of-factly. "It was the only way to prevent another meteorite hitting the Earth."_

_"You could have killed someone in the radius of the crash," Laroche bluntly spoke._

_"I-I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to pull it towards me, it just...kinda happened," the hazel eyed woman pleaded loudly, gripped the handles of the hospital bed to the point of white-knuckling. "It was just a small one."_

_However, this small chunk of space rock was attracted to her. It was a meteorite about ten by five feet and it had crashed ten miles away from where she was floating in Sawsgreene County, Virginia. Hard to imagine a petite girl managing to pull a meteoroid from outer space but it happened alright._

_"Small meteorite or not, it was attracted to you. What if you pulled in an asteroid?" the scientist clarified before she took off her glasses and wiped them on her labcoat._

_"You don't know that!" she screamed, __"I'm just trying to figure myself out!"_

_"I am afraid people like you are a threat to national security," spoke Laroche in a blank voice. "This nation cannot have a rogue...mutant running around, attracting asteroids with her every move."_

_"It doesn't even work like that!" she yelled him, her forehead and cheeks growing red with every yell. Laroche was not fazed by her loud voice and merely adjusted his sunglasses. "It doesn't...even work like that," her voice softer but filled with defeat. She was losing this battle._

_Laroche walked over to her as she inched away from him, her arm caught in the IV tubing as she shook it frantically to untangle herself. "You are lucky you're not being disposed of," he harshly whispered to her and turned his back to her, Rilla's face turning pale every passing second._

_"Instead, we moved you to the Nevada Secure Underground Research Facility, or NSURF. Think of it as a permanent relocation. You'll be treated as a guest in my own home," but the last part wasn't totally honest._

_Rilla's face was streaked with tears but Laroche did not hold much sympathy. It would only take an asteroid a kilometer wide to decimate the Earth and this young woman was unruly in his eyes. She should feel lucky that she wasn't being euthanized. Plus, Dr. Foulkes could conduct her experiments on her so really it worked out for everyone._

* * *

**_Present day_**

The Quinjet landed back on the SHIELD helicarrier base as Rilla got up from her seat and stretched as the door opened to the ground base as she, Coulson and Steve exited the jet. Back at her new home again, she smiled lightly as she saw a red haired woman approach the three of them. She recognized her as Agent Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow. She had heard her name a couple times since being aboard the helicarrier. The woman had beautiful red hair and eyes and knowing her to be a spy, Rilla didn't doubt she used them to her advantage.

"Agent Romanoff, this is Captain Rogers and Agent Marilla Cain," Coulson introduced Steve and Rilla to Natasha.

The red haired woman coolly responded with a "Hi" to both of them as she immediately told Coulson to go to the bridge for the face-trace. Now it was just her, Steve and Natasha.

"Please, can people just call me Rilla, everyone's too formal about everything here," she broke the ice as the three of them started walking. Natasha nodded, confirming her request.

"New agent, huh? How'd you get involved, Rilla?" Natasha curiously asked her.

Rilla quickly thought of an answer that would satisfy her new teammate without divulging too much information. "Fury approached me with an offer and I took it."

"Sounds reasonable," Natasha responded before she turned her attention to Steve. "It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice, Captain. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon."

"He totally did on the jet," Rilla added, smiling. "It was kind of cute though. Maybe not for Steve," she looked up at the captain, obviously still a bit awkward about the whole situation.

* * *

"Excuse me, I was told Agent Coulson's jet was supposed to land here," Dr. Bruce Banner pointed at a spot where a small fighter jet was parked, turning around in a circle a couple of times. "I don't see them."

"No, sir, they landed over _there_," the plane engineer told the man in the suit, confused as to why the curly haired man didn't just turn around. The guy was an astrophysicist but seriously lacked some common sense.

"Dr. Banner!" Steve called out to him, grabbing his attention.

"Oh," he uttered and finally turned around to find the three Avengers that were on the jet in his line of sight. Steve Rogers was familiar to him due to the rumours surrounding his revival. Natasha was in the middle, the very woman who personally showed up just for him and whisked him away to help search for the Tesseract (internally speaking, he was being sarcastic) and on her left, a young woman who he had no idea who she was. Strange looking, what with her half shaved head and her angular body.

"Yeah, hi," he shook Steve's hand, touching a scientific miracle as he looked at him up and down, "they told me you'd be coming."

"The word is, you can find the Cube," Steve mentioned.

"Yeah, you can track its gamma residue or something," Rilla rubbed the back of her neck, giving Banner a shy smile. _Way to look and sound stupid in front of an astrophysicist_, Rilla cursed herself. The doctor didn't seem to mind her statement, relieving Rilla.

"Is that the only word on me?" he asked them both.

"Only word I care about," Steve plainly said. Rilla immediately could tell Steve was the type of guy that didn't let someone's _other side_ cloud their abilities or achievements. It comforted her a little bit. Maybe he would accept her easily if he could accept the Hulk.

"I...don't think I caught your name," Bruce peered over past Steve's direction as Rilla took a few steps forward.

"Oh, it's Rilla Cain. I'll be working with you guys," she cracked another smile. Always with the smiling. Compared to these people, she felt a bit out of place. She wasn't naturally hunky-dory but she was certainly pushing that demeanor.

"Nice to meet you, Rilla," he also shook her hand. He noted that her hands were rather tiny, even for a grown woman. Then again, after seeing what size Hulk hands were, everything seemed small to him.

"You might want to get inside now," Natasha broke up the introductions, "it's going to get a little hard to breathe. Oh, and Rilla? Fury wants to talk to you. Sorry, forgot to mention it," Natasha apologized as Rilla quickly ran off to go inside, right as the helicarrier was exiting the water.

.

.

"It was hardly permissible for you to even ask Dr. Banner to join your pet project, but her?" A shadowed digital image of a woman argued back at Nick Fury. "That prisoner is unstable. She cannot control what she's doing; she'll basically cause an apocalypse!"

"If we don't _do_ something, there's going to be an apocalypse!" Fury shot back. They had found out he released Rilla from NSURF and he was really getting the heat from it. "I asked Dr. Banner to locate the Tesseract because he knows how to track down the tiniest amounts of gamma radiation. We already built a chamber for his temper tantrums in case he decides to get angry. Cain, however..." he paused momentarily, remembering from their first meeting that she liked to be called Rilla. Funny girl.

"Marilla Cain is a threat! You may be able to recover the Cube but there's not going to be much left after she pulls down a meteor! Laroche is not too pleased with her release-,"

"I don't give a damn what Laroche wants. She's better off up here with us than down there in that cave," and he forcibly turned off the monitors, ending the conference.

"Um, you wanted to talk to me?" Rilla peeked around the corner. Nick Fury left the conference room as he joined her outside, the two walking to the main deck of the helicarrier to meet up with the rest of the Avengers group.

"Yes, I do," he answered, "...have you told anyone who you are?"

Rilla shook her head. "No...To be honest I thought you told everyone else. I guess you didn't tell them so I didn't say anything," she admitted.

This wasn't good. Last night he found out that her file had been downloaded onto another server and decoded in order to access the information. One guess as to _who_ it was. Fury had hoped he could at least gather them together and then formally introduce Marilla Cain but Tony Stark had already opened that barrel of monkeys. He decided to hold back that Tony had hacked into her file as to not upset the young woman. For being 23 years old, she really did look younger than her age.

Fury gave her an understanding look as the two entered the main deck, Fury taking his leave as he walked to his spot on the helicarrier and supervised the engaging of the reflection panels before he returned to his group.

Rilla sat at the table, picking at her nails. Force of habit. She hardly registered Steve taking a seat next to her.

"Are you alright?" he asked, genuine concern in his tone.

She nodded. "Yeah, just a little nervous," as she turned her head and saw Fury greeting Dr. Banner. Bruce looked antsy to leave this place but she guessed that having a Mr. Hyde-like alterego would make anyone uncomfortable on a flying enclosed piece of metal. Talk about a guy who disliked cramped places. He'd hate where she lived in.

Not feeling very useful at the moment, she decided to walk around the heli, trying to remember where the gym was on this huge aircraft.

* * *

Natasha and Bruce walked down the corridors, not saying anything to each other at first. After a few minutes, she stopped and looked around before talking.

"Something's up. Fury's hiding something."

Bruce gave her a lopsided smile. "You just realized that?"

She shook her head. "No, not with him. _Her_. Rilla. I can't find any information on her. It's unsettling. She's not like the rest of us on file. No video, no birth certificate...or what she can do," Natasha explained as they entered the laboratory in which Bruce would be working and tracking down the Tesseract. Bruce was amazed with all the technology in the room as Natasha mentally face palmed. Men had such short attention spans, and that was speaking from loads of experience.

"She's hiding something, Bruce," reminding him as he looked up from his spectrometer.

"How do I know you're not just luring me into something else?" he asked flatly. Ouch.

Natasha rolled her eyes and walked out of the lab, leaving Bruce alone with his shiny new toys. Maybe Tony Stark shared her suspicions.

.

.

It had been so long since she felt herself floating. Rilla was all alone in the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym, just manipulating the forces around her and letting herself lift off the ground. It was the best feeling in the world. For a while, she thought she would never get to experience the sensation ever again.

She was still rusty though and she fell with a THUMP! on the slick wooden floor of the basketball court. Rilla wanted to get back into the game, literally. That's why she was out in that field four years ago. She was practicing, hoping to gain better control of her powers. Rilla drew in a deep breath and in the complex webbing of her mind, she could feel within her bones hundreds of meteoroids, asteroids and dying comets, all dancing in their orbits near the Earth. She didn't realize, however, that a rack of basketballs were also slowly levitating off the floor and that Agent Coulson had just experienced watching her, his jaw slightly open for a few minutes longer than it was for him to usually be amazed.

"Agent Cain?" he slowly asked, not knowing what else to say. This certainly wasn't on the agenda for today. Nobody ever told him about Rilla's powers. "I was told you were here..."

Rilla whipped her head over her shoulder as she stared in horror at Coulson. "Oh...Oh my god, I didn't freak you out did I? I didn't know you were there," her voice slightly trembled.

"No, it's fine. I didn't expect this, that's all," he answered so matter-of-factly. For a guy like Coulson, he dealt with the strange and secretive on a daily basis. "You're a real superhero, just like the Captain."

Rilla shook her head. "Psh, no. I can't even be compared to that guy in the same sentence."

The agent and the former prisoner stood there in awkward silence.

Rilla rubbed her chin, another habit of hers as she drew in a sigh. "I heard they found Loki in Germany...I haven't really done much for the team so far, have I? I feel really useless."

"You'll get your chance, Agent Cain."

She slid her hand down her face when his back was turned, leaving her in the gym all by herself. The knot in her stomach grew even more tangled. None of her teammates knew her "talents" yet and she was worried they wouldn't be too pleased that she and Fury had hidden her powers from them. She would have never expected Coulson of all people to discover her abilities but she figured she liked him enough that he'd be trusted to not blab all over the place.

.

.

It was a dark but clear night as the Iron Man, Black Widow and Captain America were trying to fly to base as quickly as possibly. They had just apprehended Loki, who strangely gave in to his surrender and now was acting submissive and refused to talk. Sure it was weird and all but Tony just wanted to get the heck out of here. He missed Pepper and he missed not being bothered by SHIELD agents.

Lightning was brewing in the sky.

"Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in," Captain America stated, not feeling too kind after being called a Capsicle and an 'old fellow' by Tony Stark.

"Yeah, well there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you. Like that Rilla chick? I found out she's really-,"

"Where's this come from? Freak lightning storm," Natasha interrupted Tony Stark and in that moment, the lightning struck. Thor was about to make his entrance.

Tony would have to wait til later to reveal Rilla's identity.

* * *

There you have it. Rilla controls gravity and can attract space rocks and yank them out of orbit. I thought it was an interesting ability and I haven't seen/heard too much about it so I hope it's kind of original. Not just another telepath or elemental user ;P

Also I was watching that scene when Banner meets Steve and I was just like "what the heck was he doing there with the plane" so I kinda improv'd a bit there. I was laughing pretty hard at the results.

Next chapter, Tony spills the beans. Holy frijoles.


	4. A Walking Cataclysm

I do not own anything from the Marvel Franchise.

Chapter Four: where Tony Stark spills the beans. Also Rilla meets a Norse God or two, messes with Bruce's stuff and Nick Fury is tired of all the motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane (okay not so much that last part but close enough).

Thanks so much for all the positive reviews and reception, it encourages me to get the next chapter up as soon as possible. Here is my longest chapter yet, clocking in at 5k. It's literally an explosive chapter.

* * *

**A Walking Cataclysm**

To reward herself for practicing her mad skills in the gym, Rilla was chomping down on a protein bar as she wandered around the helicarrier, wondering what was taking Steve and Natasha so long to show back up on base. Fury was already growing impatient, evident by his constant pacing around and firing off orders right and left. It was probably a good idea to stay out of the way for now. She took another bite of her snack, just meandering down the halls of the helicarrier. She passed by a few agents and she waved at them, only getting quick nods of acknowledgment in return. Rilla was a rather informal person by nature so being around officials and agents and spies made her somewhat uncomfortable, just like back at NSURF.

She decided to take a right turn and peeked her head into the doorway to find a laboratory. It was on a whole level above what she saw at NSURF and back then she thought that was the stuff from the sci-fi movies. Holographic screens, flat screen television looking things, electronic tablets, strange instruments...she turned her head to make sure no one saw her as she walked in. Curiosity often killed the cat as she gingerly touched a screen, lighting up at her touch as text boxes went in array on the side of the window.

"Wow," she uttered. Should she really be touching this stuff? Of course not. She swiped a box that displayed charts of data as she grinned widely, not really understanding what the data meant but after being around scientists for the past four years, she could pretend to be interested. Looking over her shoulder, she began typing in words in a small search engine in the upper window screen.

"N...SURF," she said it out loud as she hit 'enter', and some online articles about Nevada Secure Underground Facility popped up. She began reading them, slowly frowning as she realized it was a bunch of bull. Stuff about how it was a testing site for nuclear energy and that it was government-funded. Then again, she hardly expected anything about imprisoning freaks to show up. Rilla then typed in her name, wondering if there were any articles on her.

"Nothing," she sighed. She scrolled down to notice her parent's names, strangely bolded in a passage from a city in Kentucky, hundreds of miles away where they used to live in Virginia. The time stamp on the article was about three and a half years ago.

"William and Sandra Cain mourn the loss of their daughter, Ruby Noelle Cain, who passed away at 20 the night before moving to..." she couldn't bear to finish reading the sentence out loud.

Rilla didn't have any siblings. And her middle name was Ruby. She backed away from the screen, covering her mouth with her hand. So in the four years she was imprisoned, they left and pretended that their daughter died? Maybe even got hush money? The possibilities were a dagger in her heart.

"No! You're messing up my charts!"

Rilla nearly bumped into the table as she was caught red handed by Dr. Banner as she struggled to regain her composure, already emotionally comprised due to the discovery that she was wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by a Ruby Noelle that never existed in the first place. Her eyelids were twitching, trying to resist the urge to cry.

"Sorry," she choked out, "I was just...I need to go," she exited the laboratory, embarrassed that she was in his lab, caught using his stuff AND looked like she was the verge of tearing up. She was a goddamn Avenger now, she couldn't just cry like a big fat baby.

Bruce shook his head, not sure what Rilla's deal was. All he cared about at the moment was getting back to locate even the smallest trace of the Tesseract and as soon as that was done, he could go back to India. As he went to the display screen, he noticed Rilla had failed to exit out of whatever she was doing.

"It's a research lab, not a high school computer lab," he muttered to himself as he went to close the screen but he noticed NSURF in bold letters and it piqued his interest. He had heard of NSURF before. A couple of people from Culver University had applied for jobs there. He wasn't really into the nuclear side of science but he knew well enough about it. And the obituary? Bruce couldn't help it; as a scientist, he was naturally attracted to knowledge and even though he should be annoyed someone touched his stuff, he was more interested in _what_ she was researching.

Natasha _was_ right. Rilla _was_ hiding something and to an extent, so was Fury.

* * *

Rilla washed her face in the women's restroom, trying to scrub off that embarrassing red blush on her face. Okay, so maybe she shouldn't have been messing around with stuff that wasn't hers but after learning about her non-existence, it stung a bit and being in the lab was the least of her concerns right now. Plus it was going to be awkward around Bruce because he probably thought her to be a nuisance.

She left the restroom, feeling a little bit better. and went back to the main deck. Just in time too because she saw her fellow agents scurrying around, hearing bits of broken sentences like "Loki caught-" or "Thor has-"

Thor? Like the _actual_ Norse God? Well, if she can control gravity then sure, there can be gods from other worlds. Why not?

As she walked back down the hallway to the main deck, she heard tens of footsteps down the corridor. She was going in the opposite direction of the heavily guarded SHIELD mercenaries (or so she called them) and a strange man in green attire and hair slicked back like a snake. Her heart pounded in her chest and she realized this was the Loki, the God of Mischief and the source of all Fury's trouble. He looked rather human, even in his dated outfit but she clung to the wall of the corridor as Loki merely glanced at her, walking in the middle of two lines of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

_He gives me the creeps_, she shuddered. Was the battle already over? Did Steve pack a wallop or what? She decided to head to main deck to figure out what happened.

Fury wasn't there but she did see Natasha, Steve, Bruce and the blond God as she joined the Black Widow at the table, sitting right next to her. Natasha was watching live feed of Fury and Loki talking from the camera in the prison-like chamber room. Funny, nobody ever told her of that place in the heli.

"What a creep," Rilla pointed out as Natasha agreed.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce commented from the other end of the table. "Kind of like a lost puppy."

"A lost puppy that gouged someone's eye out," Steve reminded Bruce as her face contorted into a disgusted expression. "He's going to drag this out. He's got some sort of ulterior motive. "Thor, what's his play?"

Oh right, they had two gods on the heli now. If she were a normal person, she probably would be having some sort of faith crisis. Then again, she stopped believing in a higher power once she realized she could make it rain space rocks on the planet. It was at this moment she realized how desensitized she was and if she weren't checking out Thor (hey, he was pretty handsome), she probably could have thought about this even deeper.

"He's got an army, not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people and they will win him the Earth," in a voice that reminded Rilla of Shakespearean theater, he explained very clearly. "Even I do not know which dimension they hail from."

"So he's got a extraterrestrial space army?" Rilla repeated in her own words, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Yes, half-shaven woman," Thor called her. She suppressed a giggle.

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Dr. Selvig for," Bruce put the pieces together.

"We know Loki has him under some sort of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha spoke and near the end of her sentence Rilla noted a drop in her tone of voice. Barton was close to Natasha, or so she guessed.

The real question of the night went to Steve Rogers as he said, "I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading his space army from here. He's got this from a certain angle, a piece we're missing-,"

"I agree," Rilla backed Steve up. Out of all the Avengers so far she really liked him the most. At least he had been the nicest towards her, besides Coulson. She had to get a word in edgewise or else she would just be seen as the kid sister of the group, and well, she was far from that. "Loki's a God, right? Why can't he just...poof out?"

"Poof?" Thor repeated her strange word and Rilla had to bite her tongue from not trying to crack a laugh at how funny a deep voiced man said the word 'poof'. "How does one poof?"

"You know, like...just...disappearing out of there." A blush grew on her face as she realized she was trying to define a word that wasn't even really a word. Oh god, she sounded horribly dumb as Bruce ended her misery.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell the crazy on him."

Thor disagreed with Bruce on this, even though it was kind of a funny comment from Rilla's perspective. Bruce was like a diet Tony Stark.

"Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. He is still my brother."

And without a beat Natasha retorted: "He killed 80 people in two days."

Thor replied with, "He's adopted?"

* * *

"What is it, Stark?" Director Fury was returning from the hold where Loki was being imprisoned as a familiar snarky man approached him mid-step, a serious frown on the billionaire's face.

"How do you feel hiring someone who can't even control their own self?" he asked point-blank. "I mean, other than me but I am the most in-control, out of control person here but at least I won't devastate the world unintentionally."

Fury rolled his one eye, figuring he was talking about Dr. Banner. "Banner's here just to locate the-,"

Tony shook his head furiously, shaking his hands at him. "No, Banner's alright. He's fantastic, actually. Huge fan. However, I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about _her_, Cain."

Fury was already peeved that Tony had gone into highly confidential records, records that were only made privy to the members of NSURF and only two people aboard the heli: him and Agent Hill. He hadn't foreseen Stark accessing those files.

"She is capable of herself. Agent Coulson even told me she was in the gym earlier this evening, practicing her abilities-," Tony Stark did NOT just interrupt him again.

"That woman could bring down an asteroid the size of Manhattan!" Tony was actually pretty worried. The Hulk was a big rage monster but Marilla Cain was a harbinger of doom.

"That woman is here to _save. your. ass_!" Fury roared and Tony was left without words, quickly walking ahead of the director as he caught up with Agent Coulson, the two heading in the same direction.

.

.

As Bruce explained a scientific process that Rilla could not understand, the last person she wanted to hear had spoken.

"It's a destabilizing agent," Tony Stark made his entrance as he waved to Agent Coulson and continued, "it means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did back at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Made a very nasty mess," he under-emphasized the catastrophe. "It also means that the portal can stay open as long as Loki wants it to be. It's like a self sustaining black hole, something that our Miss Cain would be intimately familiar with, right?" he turned around, looking right at the young woman.

Rilla nearly shrunk into her seat. Why did she have a bad feeling that he was involved in her jacked files? And judging by what he meant by self-sustaining black holes, he _knew._

He knew. That day in the county, where she was apprehended for controlling her powers and bringing down a meteorite in the fields. That wasn't the only thing she was doing out there. And here Tony Stark was, saying it loud and clear as all eyes pointed to her. And now he was pretending to play pirate on the ship, totally ignoring the growing murmurs at the table.

"_You_ know about black holes?" Bruce was now interested, he hadn't exactly placed Rilla as an astronomer. He was also still intrigued by her search engine results for NSURF. "Did you work at NSURF?"

"I thought NSURF dealt with nuclear development," Natasha mused, "but I guess all sciences kind of mesh together."

Rilla gulped. _Damn it Stark, you put me on the spot_, she cursed in her head. She hadn't felt this legitimately distressed in a long while.

"I...not exactly." Not good enough.

"Not exactly?" even Steve questioned her despite the fact he only had bare-bones 40s knowledge of nuclear science.

"The only major component he needs is a power source of high density energy. Something to kick-start the Cube," he was still going on about plans and thermonuclear astrophysics.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, focused on the matter at hand now and not Rilla's prior experiences.

Bruce was distracted from asking Rilla what NSURF was like as he launched into another speech about the Cube. "He would have to heat the Cube to 120-million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless Dr. Selvig has figured out a way to stabilized the quantum tunneling effect," Tony Stark pointed out.

Rilla's head started to ache as the two men launched into playful banter about thermonuclear astrophysics. At least it was a distraction from being asked questions about NSURF.

"Dr. Banner, I'm a huge fan of your work on anti-electron collisions. Marvelous. Simply unparalleled " he piled on all the compliments; Rilla was waiting for the striking blow. "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

"Was I not clear enough for you, Stark? Dr. Banner is here to track the Cube, and that is his only priority. Also, I don't appreciate you insinuating things about your team members," Fury swooped in to save the day as Rilla finally felt herself breathe a little. "I was hoping you might join him in the lab."

Rilla slumped over the table as Natasha immediately asked if she was okay, seeing her team mate look pale. The wheels in her head were turning, and especially after what Stark and Fury mentioned, she was right in her suspicions.

.

.

"The gamma rays are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract," Banner confirmed as he waving the scanning wand-like instrument above the scepter and input the data in the computer. "But this data will take weeks to process."

"Not if we bypass the mainframe and hook this baby at 600 terraflops. You know, you ought to come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You, me and millions of dollars in the latest technology and it is all to our hearts' desires," he coaxed.

"Uh, thanks but last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem," he responded.

The two men worked in mutual silence for a few minutes as the two men were now in their respective zones, both applying their scientific knowledge and impeccable logical reasoning into locating the Tesseract. It was like watching a kung fu movie but instead of fighting, there was Tony zapping his new friend at his waist.

"I didn't know Rilla worked at NSURF," Banner thought out loud, "does she specialize in black holes? I mean, we hardly know anything about her."

Tony snorted at his new friend's misunderstanding. "She didn't work there, Bruce. She lived there. NSURF's cover is nuclear research and most of the time, that's what they do. Rilla was there for an entirely different reason though."

Banner wasn't quite getting what Tony was saying. The man was logical but had a hard time reading into people's words. Before Tony could explain, once again someone else cut in before the big reveal.

"What's going on here? Are you nuts, trying to zap him?" Captain Rogers, still in his spangly uniform, entered into the science domain.

"I'll tell you later Brucie. So, what's your secret to keeping calm? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?" he switched subjects because now he was curious as to how Banner wasn't Hulking out all the time. Tony would totally Hulk out all the time if he could.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Rogers said in disgust.

Tony pointed his zappy stick at Rogers while saying, "Funny things are. Like Dr. Banner here, how does he stay so cool? The big man is tip-toeing, he needs to strut once in a while."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Rogers contended.

Tony raised both his eyebrows in a half-amused manner. "He's not the threat. It's Marilla Cain. She's the one everyone should be worried about, not the doctor here," he alleged.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Rilla's not a threat, what are you talking about? She doesn't transform into the Hulk. No offense Doc."

"None taken," Banner replied in a flat tone, still trying to work despite the interruptions and forcing himself to tune everyone out.

"You need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark, and stop placing the blame on a woman who hasn't wronged you or anyone," Steve stepped up to the plate.

The guy known as Iron Man laughed, walking towards Captain America with a serious but condescending expression on his face. "I am focusing on the problem and that problem is the enormous pile of secrets Fury has buried us under. Why did he call us in? Why now? Why not before the Tesseract was stolen? What isn't he telling us. Oh wait, I already know one part of that equation even without all the variables," he backtracked.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Rogers asked seriously.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Duh. And it starts with Marilla Cain," he answered. "He's a spy. He's _the_ spy of all spies. He has more secrets than Regina George's hair has," and the pop culture reference was lost on the Cap but the point was still made. "Don't you think it's odd Fury doesn't tell anyone about her and she hasn't said anything about what she's done or who she is? I had to access files that were on a higher level than where the FBI keeps their most confidential records. And in a few minutes, I'll have downloaded every dirty secret that S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Really now, an intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" he rhetorically asked Rogers as he popped a blueberry in his mouth after sarcastically asking if Steve wanted one.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up, and it's starting with you. Mr. Stark. Especially with accusing Rilla of whatever secrets she may have," the Captain spoke. It bothered him that Stark kept ragging on her. "This is a man who means to start war with us, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We need to follow them through."

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you. I even found Rilla searching up NSURF and her own name on the computer, and there are no records of her in any database I can find," Bruce said.

Steve conceded with "Just find the Cube as he exited the lab, off to do Captain America things.

.

.

"Rilla, I know you're hiding something," Natasha said in a hushed tone as the two women walked in the corridors. Rilla still looked a little pale and Natasha had asked if she wanted to go to the infirmary but Rilla refused. She didn't exactly like hospitals anymore.

"What?" she faked a surprised tone.

"Don't play theatrics with me, Agent Cain," her voice took on a more serious accent. "You've been acting strange ever since I met you and I've checked all the files in the Avengers Initiative and you aren't even mentioned."

"Well, I was a late addition," she made an excuse.

Natasha sighed heavily as she stopped in the middle of the hallway, blocking Rilla's path. A deadly agent against a toothpick of a woman: who would win? They were supposed to be team mates and in Rilla's imaginative mind, maybe even become friends from the experience.

"I interrogated Loki without laying a finger on him, I'm pretty sure you can tell me who you are," she asked politely but in a strained tone.

"Oooh catfight," and Tony Stark's voice filtered through Rilla's mind. Not again. "C'mon Bruce, let's watch Black Widow and Girl Doomsday duke it out."

Rilla's hazel eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. Time froze. He did _not_ just call her that.

"Girl Doomsday?" both Natasha and Bruce were confused, Natasha stepping inside the lab to ask Stark what he meant and to relay the new information she got from Loki. Rilla waited outside, not too excited by the unfolding events.

"Our lovely Rilla is none other than former NSURF detainee Girl Doomsday, imprisoned because-,"

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Once again, Fury came in at an unexpected time and entered the lab. "You're supposed to be monitoring the Tesseract."

"We are," corrected Bruce, "the model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature right now."

"Yeah, so what is Phase 2?" Tony broke away from the Girl Doomsday topic as he uploaded the plans of Phase 2 on the holoscreen. Rilla quietly walked in, making sure Tony didn't notice her. Too late.

Steve slammed a prototype weapon on the table, and nearly marched up to Director Fury and the other Avengers. "Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

Natasha and Rilla were both stunned. Weapons? From the Cube? Rilla expected some secrets from Fury but she didn't question him at all because she saw him as her freer from her prison. This was rather extreme. "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

With the inclusion of Thor, everyone was now spread out in the lab. Rilla slunk near the corner, hoping to not attract Tony's attention again and for him to spill the beans on her past and her powers. Thor stood near her and he could see the paleness of the woman's face.

"Your face has turned a whiter shade of pale, half-shaven woman," he observed but it only made her even more white in appearance. "Are you to be sick?"

"That's because both she and Fury have been hiding secrets from us," Tony raised his voice as Natasha ordered Banner to be removed from the lab. This was turning into a dangerous quicksand as Rilla felt herself slipping deeper and deeper into the mess.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty far removed," Bruce countered.

"Loki's just manipulating you," she informed him.

"Oh, and you aren't? You manipulated me into coming here, working here among you all," Bruce shot back. "I'd personally like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction. There's even blueprints here for a black hole machine!"

"And that's where you, Rilla, come into play," Tony approached the already pale woman, "You would know all about destruction, wouldn't you? I could hardly believe what I read in those NSURF files."

"Stop it Tony," Steve warned, "she's not-,"

Rilla wasn't used to all the voices in the room. Four years it was either a robotic voice and the occasional scientist or two in her chamber but all this arguing and back-and-forth conversations was wearing her out. Fury was blaming Thor, Bruce was calling out on Phase 2, Tony was about to reveal her identity...it was all a bit too much at the moment for Rilla Cain.

She could see the scepter glowing but everyone was too busy arguing to notice it.

"This visitor from another planet had a grudge match that leveled the whole town. From that we learned we aren't alone out there and that we're hopelessly, hilariously outgunned and outnumbered," Fury admitted. "And you're not the only people out there, are you Thor? And you're not the only threat."

Rilla clenched her head with her hands, not used to all the arguing and quick-talking. Natasha mentioned everyone was on threat watch, which included Rilla. Bruce made a snide remark about Captain America on threat watch and then Tony brought up once again that Rilla was a threat.

"Fury's right, you know," he agreed with the director in a sardonic tone, "Loki isn't the threat. Rilla here is the most immediate threat and allow me tell you why: four years ago she caused a meteorite to hit the earth!" Tony finally said it. "That's why she's here, so in case we fuck up somehow, she can make sure we get decimated in the process! That's why she was imprisoned for so long until Fury let her out!"

Banner, Natasha and Steve were momentarily silenced by the knowledge. Natasha had been right in her doubts and Steve was dumbfounded. Banner was too. That's what Tony meant with Rilla knowing about black holes.

"That's why Rilla was at NSURF, why there are no files on her that we can access. Girl Doomsday has gravitokinesis. I'll dumb it down for Captain Apple Pie here: she controls gravity. She's like a walking cataclysm," Tony

Rilla was fighting back the urge to break down. This wasn't what she wanted. Sure, it wasn't right to hide it from everyone but how was she going to explain it to people? It wasn't exactly an ice breaker with most people.

"That's not why I'm here," she nearly croaked. "I'm not a threat, stop treating me like one!"

"How can we trust you when you can't control your powers?" Natasha asked her and Rilla grit her teeth.

"There is another god aboard this ship?" Thor asked, looking right at Rilla. "You control the forces of space and the invisible entities around us?"

Rilla shook her head multiple times at Thor. "No, Thor, I'm not a god. But I am Girl Doomsday, and I used to be imprisoned at NSURF because my abilities can be seen as a risk to humanity. You should thank Tony, he really did all the research," she spoke bitterly. She had enough of this fragmented team. She was going to talk right now and nobody could stop her.

"The only person in this damn place that has any faith in me is Coulson!" she shrieked, glaring at everyone but Tony in particular. "He saw me gravitating in the gym and instead of calling me a freak or a danger to all mankind, he believed in me. He brushed it off. He wasn't scared of me...he wasn't like every other person I've met who has labeled me a threat like _some_ people! He's been nicer to me than all of you put together!"

Rilla was exhausted. All that pent up emotion made her sick and she could feel herself not as pale as five minutes ago.

The hurting silence was short lived as alarms rang through the helicarrier and everyone was flung from the force of the explosion. Rilla fell down with Natasha and Bruce, wishing she had seen this coming and that the destruction had already been done to their so-called team long before their side of the heli blew up.

* * *

What a happy family, right? I had to make some edits so this wouldn't read like a literal movie script because that is so incredibly boring so I tend to mix dialogue up or add stuff in and whatever. Also, I dislike it when people literally insert their character into the canon story line like with no effort. Characters have to gel, y'know?

Tony's always really fun to write as. Bruce too. This fic needs more Bruce.

Next chapter: Rilla faces two green monsters.


	5. Trust Me

I do not own the Marvel franchise. I just write fanfiction.

I'm really blown away by the reviews and faves and reception this fic gets. Thanks so much, you lovely lovely people :)

**Warning**: Character death, but I think you guys know who it is :( Also, this chapter is going to break established movie canon. I re-wrote this chapter like 4 times until I settled on a plausible way to break canon and still have it be believable, so don't kill me please D:

So shameless plug time: I have started up a new fic (oh my god I already have 2 I need to update, jeez Hannah) and it's another Avengers fic and it's sci-fi and it has Steve and an alien lady and wow yeah you should go check it out. Ok I'm done, on with Chapter Five!

* * *

**Trust Me**

Rilla felt the scorch of the flames from the explosion in the lab heat up her back as she fell with a resounding crash to what she assumed to be a basement of sorts under the lab. She groaned as she heard hundreds of sirens go off as she struggled to lift herself up. Oh that's right, she didn't have to. Like batting an eyelash, she levitated above the floor, noticing Natasha and Bruce still lying there. Natasha's leg was pinned under some debris and Bruce was off to the side on his stomach.

She then heard Fury's voice in her headpiece as she listened to him. "Cain, are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm hovering but Natasha's pinned down and Bruce...he's hardly moving..." she reported.

"We're okay," Natasha added.

"Get them out of there and whatever you do, try to prevent-," but the feed turned into static noise in Rilla's ear. And before Rilla had time to wonder why, she heard strained groaning from below her.

Bruce was panting like an injured animal and judging by the look on Natasha's face, this only meant one thing.

"Bruce, we're okay," Natasha spoke calmly despite the delicacy of the situation. "We're okay, right?"

Rilla shook her head. "We have to make sure he doesn't Hulk out, I think that's what Fury was trying to tell us," she guessed but she wasn't too far off.

Bruce was still panting and his fists were clenched tight, heaving in and out like a predator. This was not going to end well if Natasha and Rilla couldn't calm the good doctor down. So much for an apple a day, right?

"Doctor, don't do this. This is what Loki wants, you have to fight it," Natasha repeated over and over as she tried to wriggle out of the debris. The usually calm and collected agent had a slight tremble in her voice, worried about what would happen being stuck in a small area with the _other_ guy.

"Please, Bruce," Rilla lowered herself to where she was just two inches above Bruce's head, "don't give in. You _can't_. We all gave in a few minutes ago but we can move on from this!"

Two men tried to approach the area but Natasha waved them off as Rilla tried to move the pipe off Natasha's leg. After a few tries and some manipulation of the force, she finally wedged Natasha free. Everything that was said in the lab before they crashed to the bottom of the floor was forgiven without saying a word. Natasha and Rilla had more urgent issues at hand.

"I swear on my life, Bruce, that I will get you out of this," Natasha huffed, staying her distance from the man in tremendous mental and emotional pain. "You can walk away from this!"

Rilla yelled, "Goddamnit, don't do this! We don't want to hurt you!"

"YOUR LIFE?"

_Oh shit, he's going green_, Rilla frantically thought as she tried to think of a plan that would end with all three getting out of this disaster area alive. The percentages were dropping like flies though and judging by the fact her earpiece wasn't communicating properly, she had no idea how to contact the others. Yelling at him probably wasn't one of Rilla's best ideas but Natasha wasn't faring much better.

Bruce was changing into the Other Guy as he lost his grip on the ground and fell off the platform onto the very bottom floor near all the valves and pipes. Natasha thanked Rilla for releasing her as the women looked down at the horror unfolding. For a split moment, Dr. Banner was looking at the two of them with familiar eyes but it vanished just as quickly as it came. Rilla jumped down to the ground floor, the power going out as the Hulk smashed some generators and a propane tank. He hadn't Hulked out in over a year so he was still rather wobbly walking down the hallway. She stood a few feet away from the green monster as she stood her ground, despite Natasha's orders to NOT do that.

"Bruce," Rilla pleaded, "Bruce, I know you're in there, somewhere." It was literally the most cliche line ever used in movie history and Rilla was saying it. "You and I, we both are scary people-," she dodged a choice fist punch at the last minute, "but Loki's _not_ doing this to you. You're doing this to yourself!" she raised her voice at him, wanting to drill some goddamn sense into this guy. "I know what it's like to not have control over your abilities, Bruce," she continued in a gentler voice, "I really do."

The Hulk bellowed a deep roar as he came after her. Not even one recognizable twitch on his face revealed he had heard anything she said, and she had just told her insecurities to a brick wall. "Ouch!" Rilla slammed onto the cement floor, scurrying on her back as she tried to avoid the Hulk's fists pounding in her direction. She propelled herself off the ground, trying to remain as focused as possible on her power as to not suffer another crash.

"Rilla, get up here!" Natasha called out for her. The agent was clinging onto some bars on the ceiling and flipped herself over the next level.

The woman frowned as she dodged another Hulk hit. "I'm trying to but I'm kind of bu- Hey! Watch it!" she was pushed to the side as Hulk started to rip off the vents from the ceiling to force Natasha out. If it were the right time and place, she would have totally been impressed with Natasha's sweet acrobatic moves. Natasha jolted across the upper walkway to hide it out as Rilla was forced to contend with Dr. Banner's alter ego.

_This isn't working!_, she could barely think that thought amidst all the other chaotic messages in her brain. Rilla missed another punch by the Hulk and she was running out of room to run. She hovered above the ground once more, a few broken pipes also gravitating towards her presence in the area. It would sure be a great time for Natasha to swoop in any minute now. Her options were dwindling and the former doctor was too rage-filled and absorbed in his Mr. Hyde ego to listen to reason. There was, however, a last resort.

She could attack him directly.

Rilla was not a violent person or a fighter by nature. Could she _really_ bring herself to harm another being, even if he was threatening her life? She had never used her powers to hurt people. Director Laroche told her multiple times she was a threat but she had never physically threatened anyone. Was it still moral to hurt Bruce in his monster form even though the doctor was trapped in there somewhere? Even if it was for the sake of snapping out of his Hulk form? If only she had more than 5 seconds to ponder.

She drew in a breath, finally coming to terms with the decision she was about to make. "I'm _so_ sorry, Bruce," and Rilla was honestly sincere about her words as she lowered herself down onto the ground; the pipes clattering attracted Hulk's attention even more. Rilla looked directly at the Hulk and made a spherical shape with her hands, as if holding a basketball. Hulk looked at her in angry confusion as he prepared to slam the floor with his feet but he didn't get his chance. The green giant was visibly struck by a rapidly forming sphere of gravitational energy and although it didn't knock him out like Rilla was hoping it would, it definitely caused some damage. She had created a "gravity ball" as she liked to think of it and it definitely repelled the Hulk away from her, the green man falling on his bum and causing the room to vibrate.

It hurt her to do this but she _had_ to fight him. She didn't want to and especially not her own damn team mate but running away and trying to talk sense into him was clearly not working. It worked in the Hollywood B movies but reasoning didn't work on a hijacked burning helicarrier in the sky. Maybe blasting him with a gravity ball wasn't the brightest idea either but she couldn't afford to make long term decisions right now. As the Hulk recovered and came bounding after her, she decided to propel herself up near the uppermost floor and try to find Natasha. It became quiet as the brunette searched for the Black Widow and she felt a tug at her ankles.

"Shhhh," Natasha hushed in a hardly audible tone as the two camped out behind a series of valves. A minute or so passed and Natasha gave the go-ahead to slink out of the maze. Too late. Natasha looked over one row of tanks and they were greeted with a roar from the doctor. The agent fired a bullet at the pipe up above them as the two women took off running.

"What did you _do_ to him?!" Natasha exclaimed, nearly tripping over a large step as the two women were running in single file down an incredibly narrow passageway.

"I tried to blast him, maybe stun him for a second or two-," Rilla tripped, cutting her cheek on an exposed corner of the ledges on the floor. Natasha swiftly turned around on her heel and extended her arm, rushing Rilla to get the hell up or else they'd be squashed. "Maybe if I hit him, he'd snap out of it."

"He's already snapped!" Natasha yelled and right when they were in the home stretch, the red haired agent was whacked by Hulk's fist as she went soaring through the air. Rilla tried to slow it down but that didn't work either. Hulk was on the other side of the chamber, shaking his head from the impact. This time, he was visibly shaken by being slammed into the ventilation wall.

Rilla dived in front of the injured Natasha, spreading her arms out as if to challenge him. As the former scientist approached them with his hand held high as if to smack the two of them, Rilla concentrated on gathering enough energy to try and maybe repel the Hulk. And then a certain Norse god literally crashed through and broke through the next couple of walls. So much for swooping in.

Girl Doomsday bent down as she helped prop Natasha against the column, trying to eke out a promising smile so Natasha wouldn't worry about her. "I'll be okay. Stay here, alright?"

Before Natasha had a chance to say anything, Rilla was already jumping through the holes after Thor and Hulk. A bare-bones smirk crossed her face as it vanished due to the searing pain in her leg. That girl was nuts but perhaps she wasn't so bad after all.

.

.

Rilla quickly joined Thor by his side as Hulk got into a fighting stance as if he were a bull in an arena. Thor looked over to the young woman, not wanting her to be crushed in the process. She really was the definition of a 'tiny human'. However, he held his tongue as the Hulk slammed a fist down on the god, Thor barely able to hold up the fist over his head.

"We are not your enemies, Banner. We are your friends, try to think!" he attempted to reason with the Hulk.

"We tried that Thor, it didn't work!" Rilla said as she saw her team mate punched quite a ways away as the Hulk was now focused on her. She wished reason worked on him or else they wouldn't be in this predicament.

"Is there any way to return Dr. Banner to his previous shape?" Thor asked her over the calamity before he was punched by the Hulk and hit a wall. Rilla gulped as she formed the shape with her hands once more and like shooting a basketball, she projecting another sphere of gravitational energy at the Hulk. Repelled by the force, he flew about fifteen feet away from them, landing on his back and gritting his teeth in aggravation. It was like bowling except the pins were angry to be knocked down.

"Thor, I think I have an idea!" she called out to the blond god; unfortunately she wasn't playing attention and in a split second, Rilla was tossed aside by the Hulk, hitting the ground a couple times like a rock skipping over a pond. "Ugh, I think I broke something," she complained before she shook her head and remembered what she was saying in the first place.

"Now would be the time for your plan," Thor reminded her as he threw Mjolnir at the Hulk aiming right at the abdomen. Holding the side of her chest with her opposite hand, she walked slowly over to Thor. She hadn't told him what she was planning to do but wanted to warn him anyway. Thor ducked under a wing of an airplane as it sliced through a Jeep, barely missing Rilla.

"You might want to fasten your seat belt. This is going to get really bumpy," she cocked a half-grin at her team mate. Man, was she being cheesy today or what? After, they were in the airplane and Jeep hangar.

Thor blinked a few times. "Seat...belt? Cain, we are not on a ride of amusement," he sternly stated, fending off all punches from the doctor as he delivered one right to the Hulk's face. Rilla felt a twinge of jealousy; she was a chopstick compared to every else on her team. The worst she could physically do is poke someone with her sharp elbow.

Rilla shook her head. "Nevermind," she rolled her eyes and with an upward motion of her hand, gravity flipped. Literally.

Girl Doomsday just flipped the field gravity upside down, like in one of those Tron movies. She called it floortilting. And like a cat lands on its feet, Rilla was fine standing upside down. The same couldn't be said for the Hulk or Thor.

"Sorry Thor. It's a bit disorienting, forgot to mention that," she sheepishly smiled, as she stood her ground, waiting for the Hulk to do something. Obviously, not many people stood on a ceiling on a daily basis so Hulk was groaning out of the blood rushing to his head. She was using her energy to force both him (and he was a pretty heavy guy right now) and Thor (especially heavy with that hammer of his) on the ceiling. Frankly, she wasn't sure it was even going to work.

"You control space like a goddess, Cain," Thor said in awe. Rilla chuckled and shook her head. First Coulson and now Thor? She wasn't _that_ great.

"Ha...ha, okay, Thor, I'm gonna drop him."

"Drop? Him? Onto the ground?" he repeated.

She nodded. "Yep. I just have to release him and..._oh shit_," She had failed to estimate Hulk's adaptability to the floor tilt and he literally punched a hole in the ceiling, ending Rilla's gravity trick as she weakly grasped onto the edges of the new hole in the floor above them, Thor and Hulk already duking it out. Rilla swallowed the bile that built up in her throat as she pulled herself onto the floor, raising her head to see a small fighter jet in the wide window.

"WATCH OUT!" she screamed as the Hulk turned in her direction, his back shielding the women from the bullets shooting through the heli window. She was sure he didn't mean to stand in front of her to protect her but it worked. Rilla burrito-rolled on her side to where Thor was, a gash on her cheek from broken glass.

"We are in danger, Cain, we need to remove ourselves quickly!" Thor lifted her up by the shoulders as the two slid towards the only other opening in the room. Rilla watched in horror as the doctor leapt out of the window in King Kong fashion and pounced onto the fighter.

"No! We have to go back!" she yelled, "He's going to fall! I can make sure he doesn't fall!" she slipped out of his grasp and limped to the broken window, seeing the green giant on a plane like it was a toy plane at the park. She sucked in air as she concentrated on the slowly downing fighter jet. Hulk was spinning faster and faster and Rilla had to exert most of her power due to the wide gap of distance between her on the helicarrier and Hulk in midair. Her arm was outstretched as she gnashed her teeth in pain, and her hand almost cupped the outline of the plane and the Hulk.

Her body was not meant for so much work though and she started levitating above the floor and hit her head on the remaining pieces of window glass in the frame of the heli, earning a nasty head gash as she strained and strained. After two minutes, she could see a man parachuting out of the plane, a giant explosion of the place and a bulky shape slowly floating upwards towards the sky. Barely. If she had been two seconds late...

She did it. God _damn_, she had never used her powers to such an extreme and due to how heavy Dr. Banner's other form was, she had a strong feeling this was going to hurt like a mother in the morning. However, neither the Hulk or Rilla were out of the danger zone yet as she weakly beckoned Hulk's shape towards her and oddly enough, he wasn't fighting it. Maybe he was K'OD by the explosion? Shrapnel could cause someone to pass out.

"Come...on..." she groaned as she squinted her eyes to make sure he was gravitating towards her. After what felt like an eternity, the body of the Hulk toppled back into the room as she collapsed to her knees. He was out alright and even though he was still in Hulk form, she could tell he wasn't going to attack her.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again about hitting him with the gravity balls earlier. Rilla felt immensely guilty despite the fact he was more likely to kill her than her to him. She remembered Thor as she frowned down at the passed out Hulk. Big guy like him taken out by a blown up ship? She wasn't going to question it.

She limped to where she guessed Thor ran off to. She looked down at the Hulk as she forced out a smile even though it would go unappreciated. "I'll be okay. Stay here, alright?"

.

.

When she touched her cheek, red stained her fingertips as she heard the thundering "NO!" of the god as she weakly ran to the source. Why did it not surprise her that she saw Thor in Loki's chamber. Her heart stopped as the snake-like Asguardian proudly strolled out of his container with a smug look on his face. Rilla figured someone overrode the security measures when the heli was hijacked. She leaned against the frame of the opening into the chamber. This place was a familiar parallel to the chamber she once lived in.

"Don't!" she yelled after Thor but he was too headstrong and fell into an obvious trap. Loki and Thor switched places and now his brother was inside the clear prison. Loki looked on with a sick pleasure as he turned around to find the bloodied Rilla merely stand before him.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" he raised a brow at his brother, trapped like a small rodent in a cage. Rilla wasn't terrified of the Hulk but she was scared of Loki. Frightened, really. Probably because he reminded her a little bit of Director Laroche. "Is your tongue now heavy as lead, Marilla?" he continued and she was surprised that he knew her name. "Yes, yes, a former prisoner just like me. You and I were wrongfully put away, weren't we?"

_How the hell did he know that?_ _I never even talked to him, only saw him_...the realization hit her faster than a bomb. Loki expressed a twisted pleasure in watching her face contort as she became aware of how he could have possibly figured her out. She saw him in the hallway. He must have pulled some magic god mumbo jumbo or something.

She jerked her head to a large BONG!, watching Thor smash his hammer against the wall of the container. Her eyes widened as she shook her head and nearly jumped to the walkway to the front of the chamber, yelling at him to stop doing that. Loki did not stop her; rather he watched on with grim amusement.

"Oh," he tsk'ed, "he shouldn't have done that. Now we find out if immortals can die. Care for us to find out?" he sardonically asked Rilla as he walked over to the control panel and had his hand hovering over that one red button.

Rilla wanted to suppress the gravity around him and slam Loki to the ground but she had exerted herself to the limit. She heard the body drop of the gunman outside as lo and behold! Agent Coulson entered with a big gun that Rilla assumed was from Phase 2. She wanted to smile but that required moving her mouth.

"Move away, please," he requested in a clear tone that was very Coulson-like of him. Even when the heli was on fire and hell breaking loose, Agent Coulson remained cool and collected. Strangely enough, the god of mischief backed off as Coulson walked towards them, almost appearing like he would surrender. "Like this? It's pretty cool. It's a prototype. Even I don't know what it does. Wanna find out?"

_What a hero_, which was an understatement. Agent Coulson here to rescue them, hit Loki with whatever energy that gun contained and she'd thank him-

.

.

"NO!" Rilla didn't feel the word leaving her lips, her chest almost caving in from a prolonged scream from the one syllable.

Her vision began to blur. In the twenty three years of her life, Rilla Cain had never seen someone fatally stabbed in front of her. Not Coulson. One of the very few who wasn't scared of her when he saw her defy gravity in the gym earlier, always treated her nicely and everything. She didn't even know him all that well and here she was, crying over him. She had never cried over someone dying. She could hear the muffled yell of Thor as he slammed his fist against the wall.

"Don't you dare..." she croaked at Loki, limp-running towards the control panel but it was too late. "Thor!"

Thor was falling and she had wasted her abilities on trying to save Hulk from dropping to a possibly fatal death. Rilla dropped to her knees as she tried to summon enough power to manipulate gravity, for everyone on the ship to float...but nothing worked. She grit her teeth at Loki, who merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Look at all this destruction _you_ caused, Marilla," he raised his hand to survey the room, shifting the blame onto the young woman, "And here I believed the doctor to be the monster."

"You're the monster, Loki," she coughed out, looking over her shoulder to see a fading Coulson slumped against the wall.

"Tell me something I have not heard," he deeply chuckled, ice cold eyes piercing her hazel eyes. He was terrifying. Not in a rabid dog sort of way but he was terrifying in a realistic way: so reserved and yet maniacal. At least the Hulk was honest in its scary appearance, Loki was not.

"You're going to lose," Coulson stated and Rilla almost dragged herself to sit near Coulson to hear him better as the agent tilted his head to the side, weakly smiling at Rilla.

Loki paused in mid-step, turning around to face the stabbed agent with a condescending expression on his lean face. "Am I?"

"It's in your nature."

Coulson was pretty damn clever to have figured out Loki, even though it was a little too late. Loki began to approach Coulson and Rilla with pride in his footsteps, a permanent raised eyebrow on his face as he began to list why they would fail: "Your heroes have failed you, foolish man. They are scattered, broken, falling to their deaths," and his hand was raised to the gaping hole where the prison chamber dropped through. "Your floating fortress falls from the sky and yet, _yet_ you still say I am going to lose? Tell me, where is my disadvantage?"

She could not believe the nerve of this god and if she were in better shape, she would forget about her less-than-violent nature and clobber this guy. God or not, Loki was scum and she desperately tried to do something, _anything_ to at least make up for not saving Thor in time but she was too tired from the physical, emotional and mental stress she was currently under. Instead, Rilla sat by Coulson, agreeing with every word he spoke.

"You lack conviction."

And before Loki could counter, the gun Coulson held finally charged up and released the brightest ball of energy Rilla had ever seen. So much for measly bullets. The energy exploded and Loki was visibly shaken by impact as he smashed through a wall. Rilla heaved, trying to laugh but it didn't work out. She knew it wouldn't kill Loki and right now he was probably escaping but she needed to stay by Coulson. Rilla hoped Natasha and Bruce were okay and she also felt guilty about leaving them behind even though she cared enough to tell them she'd be okay.

"I'm going to get you help," Rilla began to stand up but pain seared through her knees as she crumbled back down, gritting her teeth and trying to prevent herself from crying more. She slumped against the same wall, sitting near Coulson. "You'll be...okay, you're not gonna die..."

"You're very brave, Agent," Coulson told her in that same calm voice, not afraid.

She weakly tried to laugh. "N-no. You just told off Loki and blasted him with a really awesome gun...I c-couldn't save Thor," she felt her chin wobble, a warning that she might cry. "And now I can't do anything for you...I can't..." she buried her face in her knees, letting tears fall. She wasn't a superhero, she was a big fat baby in an old S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.

He didn't say anything at first as he lifted his chin up to look at the ceiling. Rilla wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and tasted copper. After what seemed like a couple minutes, Coulson finally spoke to her.

"...Don't lack conviction either, Agent. Don't you dare lose faith in yourself," he stressed, blood trickling down the curve of his mouth and Rilla wanted him to stop talking to save strength. "Trust me on this."

She nodded and some time passed until she saw Director Nick Fury and even he was stunned by the scene. No chamber, no Loki and two of his agents severely injured or worse.

"Sorry boss, the god rabbited," Coulson tried to explain Loki's absence but right now that didn't matter. She knew Fury was deeply concerned for Agent Coulson. Who wouldn't? He was _the_ agent after all.

"Just stay awake, Agent. Eyes on me," Fury bent down and he began to blast off orders left and right but Coulson stopped him.

"No, I'm clocked out."

Rilla rested her chin on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs like a small child hiding in a closet. She wanted Coulson to pull through. This was Nick Fury, if he could rescue her from NSURF then maybe the director could defy Death and save Coulson.

"That is not an option," Fury told him and even with an eye patch, he was showing weakness. The worst was coming and

"It's okay, boss. This was never going to work...if they didn't...if they didn't have something to..." it was like he was just about to say the word; Rilla waited for him to speak anything, to finish his sentence but Coulson's lips never moved.

Rilla sobbed long after Agent Coulson was taken away by S.H.I.E.L.D. paramedics. Nick Fury came back to find her still slumped against the wall and in a fatherly but still authoritative voice he told her to go to the infirmary so she could be taken care of.

.

.

* * *

So, wow what a chapter right? I always get really sad when Coulson dies. Damn you Joss Whedon, making me feel feelings :(

I went through 4 rewrites and in the end I chose Bruce over Thor :P originally she was going to save Thor from falling and beat herself over not saving Bruce but eh I'm happy with the final result (this is a romance after all ;P ) Hopefully, you all are happy with the result and everyone was in character and all that jazz

Next chapter: The consequences of the choices Rilla made come to light, Bruce wakes up and everyone realizes they've been kinda assholes to each other.


	6. Our Own Worst Enemy

I do not own anything from the Marvel Franchise.

What a depressing last chapter, right? Phil, you make my heart bleed.

* * *

**Our Own Worst Enemy**

A S.H.I.E.L.D. nurse applied some thin white bandages to Rilla's cut cheek, gently rubbing each strip so it would stick to the wound. Rilla didn't care whether the peroxide stung her or not, frankly she had just experienced worst pains in the span of fifteen minutes. Her body was bruised beyond hell and she had just exerted beyond her capabilities to stop the Hulk from falling to a possibly fatal death. And yet she could do nothing as she saw Loki stab Agent Coulson in front of her and Thor trapped inside a falling container. Her body was over-stressed and she was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted right now. The nurse told her she was lucky she didn't break any bones (even though she felt like she did) but it didn't really matter.

Coulson died. And the last thing he said to her was "Trust me on this."

Rilla didn't feel like crying anymore; she sobbed for a good ten minutes. She felt crushed by the consequences of her actions and sure, she saved Bruce but she was scared that Thor was going to be severely hurt and that she felt weak for not preventing Coulson's death.

"Director Fury wants to see you in the control room," the nurse gingerly spoke to Rilla as she allowed the young woman to leave the hospital bay. She wasn't in perfect shape but after the carrier attack, who would be? She entered the main deck of the heli as she already saw Steve and Tony sitting at the table. Rilla wondered where Natasha was.

"Rilla," Steve looked over his shoulder to see his team mate as he beckoned her to come over and sit near him as she pulled out a chair and sat, flopping her elbows on the table as she glanced over to see Tony sitting; he also looked like he got the crap kicked out of him. On any other occasion she would find it humorous but not now. Not this time.

Fury was standing in front of them, not speaking for the longest time. Really, his body language was telling them everything. They were a disaster. The Avengers were not acting like a team. People died. Coulson died. Everything went to shit. Rilla wondered what Fury was going to say.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," in his hands were the prized mint Captain America trading cards that Agent Coulson loved to talk about. Rilla raised her head as a lopsided frown formed on her face. She didn't see them in his jacket pocket and she was sitting right next to the man when he died. And he didn't have a breast pocket. "I guess he never did get you to sign them," he spoke with a bitter taste in his mouth as he tossed them right at Steve.

The blood stains almost made Rilla tear up again. Tony looked at her expression and he parted his mouth to say something but he must have figured it out before he asked her. All those pretty, super valuable cards were now forever stained with an innocent man's blood and now they were really valuable, more so than before. Rilla touched one with her fingers, flipping to the back side for a small bio about how Captain America founded the Howling Commandos. She wanted to smile but she couldn't.

"We're dead in the air up here, agents. We have no signals. Our systems were corrupted and we lost the location of the Cube as well as Thor...I got nothing for you all," he stated. Rilla already knew Thor was not here but Steve and Tony didn't.

"I...tried..." she softly spoke, as if trying to defend herself for a crime no one accused her of. "Loki tricked him...and now I lost him and we almost lost Bruce too."

"I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming," at this point it seemed like Fury was just talking to himself. Rilla rested her chin in the palms of her hands, not feeling like being here right now. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal using the power of the Tesseract. In retrospect, perhaps I was wrong to hide it from you all. I never fully bet on it though."

Rilla bet Tony was feeling like a complete wipe now. All that arguing, accusing...Fury wasn't wrong for carrying secrets but maybe he wasn't right about either. He was at least admitting his mistakes.

"I was playing something ever riskier. There was an idea called the Avengers Initiative. Stark knows this. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. From a captain to a billionaire to a former prisoner...we would take all of them and see if they could work together when we needed them to fight the battles we never could. Instead, you allowed yourselves to bicker, to fight not for a common enemy but among each other. _Some_ of you let the past threaten you more than Loki could. Others simply could not cooperate."

Everyone was silent and Rilla noticed that Tony had looked to her when Fury mentioned about the past. She knew what he meant and Tony didn't have to say anything to let her know that he felt like a complete jerk to her.

"Phil Coulson died believing in the Avengers. In heroes. In all of you. But I guess it's an old fashioned notion," he purposely said that in front of Steve as he stepped away from the table, having finished what he wanted to say to all of them.

A familiar face walked into the control room right after Fury had finished talking. Rilla looked up from spacing out at the table to see none other than Dr. Bruce Banner, in clean new clothes and looking like he overslept rather than transforming into a green monster. Breaking her solemn expression, her eyes slightly lit up at his presence. He was okay! A little rough around the edges but he must have calmed down while he was passed out and reverted back to his previous form.

"Headaches are always the worst," he gripped his temples with his hands. "I almost felt like I was falling..."

Rilla wanted to say something but held her tongue. Steve, however, spoke for her.

"Rilla saved you," he wanted to say _something_ so Rilla would stop beating herself up over not being able to prevent Thor's fall or Coulson's death. Thor was a god so chances are he'd be okay and it was not her fault for what happened to Coulson. Steve had been polite to Rilla from the beginning but after hearing what she did to rescue Bruce and hold her own against him in his Hulk form, he found a whole new respect for her.

Bruce lifted his head, removing his hand from his face as he looked at the woman with the half-shaved head. Her eyes were still red, probably from crying over Coulson's death. "I didn't hurt you did I?"

Rilla shrugged. "Just a few taps here and there," she understated. "If anything, I'm sorry I hurt you. It was my last resort."

Bruce sat down at the table with Steve and Rilla, taking Tony's previous spot. Rilla hadn't noticed the man of iron leave so quickly. Bruce fiddled with his hands as Rilla noticed some bruises on his knuckles. It probably wasn't pain-free going back and forth from a regular human to his other guy form.

"There's bits and pieces," Bruce explained, Steve looking on with interest. "I remember falling with Natasha and you...a lot of gurgling, probably your voices and I think I heard someone say they were sorry?"

Rilla nodded. She was impressed he even remembered that much. She would not have expected it. From how she believed it, they were separate personalities and the Hulk usually suppressed the Dr. Banner side of him whenever he was in Hulk mode. "That was me. I blasted you with a gravity ball."

Steve wasn't aware of that ability of hers and judging by Bruce's reaction, he wasn't prepared to hear that either. Rilla shrunk into her seat, slowly lowering herself out of embarrassment and guilt.

"I don't usually expect a stick to stand up to a hurricane," Bruce half-heartedly chuckled. He was obviously referring to her as the stick, which she didn't take offense to because she was quite bony and thin and the metaphor was kind of funny.

"And a hurricane can't do anything against Armageddon," Rilla smirked, the smile almost felt foreign to her after being serious and sad for a long while. Bruce hadn't lost his self-deprecating humor in the process so maybe their little broken group was healing. Just a little bit.

"Where's Thor?" Bruce asked.

Good feelings gone. Rilla turned away from him as Steve nearly cringed. "Loki tricked Thor into the chamber. We lost communication with him. Stark's gone off. I think Natasha is with Agent Barton."

Rilla's ears perked up at Barton's name. He was still here? Was he still under Loki's spell? "Is he ...you know..._all there_?" she asked Steve, concern in her voice. She was fearing the worst; that Loki still had him on strings.

Steve shook his head and told Rilla not to fret about it. "Apparently, Natasha hit him really hard on the head and broke Loki's voodoo over him," Steve relayed what he learned to the two of them. If it were so simple to do that, then why couldn't that have been done earlier to all of Loki's victims?

"We're all to blame, really," Rilla heavily sighed, her hazel eyes darkening with guilt again. Coulson's last words were like a skipping record in her head; always 'Trust me on this.' "Fury's right. We let ourselves become our own worst enemy. Loki may have lit the fire but we let it spread," she glumly spoke. "Coulson told me I was brave. He told me to not lose faith in myself. Or else I would lack conviction. His last words to me were to trust him."

Bruce and Steve both looked at each other and then at the depressed young woman as both men interpreted her words in their own mind. Finally, Steve stood up.

"I'm going to find Stark. He's up to something," and the captain politely excused him from the doctor and the former prisoner. Bruce and Rilla were the only ones left at the table and really one of the few left in the control room. Many agents were being tended to in the infirmary or just being quiet. After all, what was there to be said?

"I wanted to reason with you, Bruce. I really did," Rilla forced out, her eyes now focused on the scientist. "I tried it a couple times. Because I know what it's like to lose control."

Bruce huffed. "Really? Do you also turn into a monster and crush everything with your gravity powers? We'd be two peas in a pod." She forgot that Bruce could be just as sharp with his words like Tony Stark could be.

Rilla shook her head. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. Way to go bigmouth. "No. But I was locked away underground for four years because I lost control and caused a meteoroid to hit Virginia. I thought if I could bring myself down to your level-,"

"It's admirable but that was also stupid and I could have killed you and Natasha if you kept trying to be a diplomat. In fact, I know the other guy smashed things," Bruce tried to recollect but from personal experience he also guessed so he was right in that regard.

She wouldn't breathe a word of this to anyone but she kept waiting for him to yell 'Hulk smash!' but fortunately it never happened and there were other pressing concerns than catchphrases. "I just didn't want you to be hurt...you were pummeling that fighter jet and spiraling downwards from the sky so I..." and she made the motion as she felt her chair levitate a few inches off the ground, as well as the table. Oh, this was good. Her powers were being restored. It didn't last though as the table and chair clattered to the floor, attracting the attention of fellow agents as she pretended nothing happened.

Bruce seemed amazed at what was happening. He wasn't fully conscious as himself to see her perform her abilities. It never occurred to him that gravity could be manipulated as if it were easy to do so. One of his boyhood idols was Sir Isaac Newton, considerably the most influential scientist who ever lived. Rilla was living proof of his laws. She rescued him using science, basically.

"I'm sorry about what happened to Coulson. He was a good guy," Bruce tried to sympathize. He wasn't as familiar with the agent as Steve, Tony and Rilla were but he felt like he had to say something. Plus, he noticed her looking like she was beating herself up internally and God knows he's been in that self-loathing stage a million times over. "The captain's right though. I'm a hypocrite when I tell you this but you can't let it eat away at you, literally."

Rilla felt a little better but not by much and she was about to say Bruce was a hypocrite because he revealed earlier he tried to commit suicide but that was a touchy subject and everyone was already feeling exposed after the helicarrier hijacking. She wanted to go visit Natasha and see if Barton was feeling any better but she didn't feel like moving from her spot.

They would have to finish their little talk later. Captain America walked back into the control room in full uniform, Natasha and Barton on each side of him as he approached the former Hulk and Girl Doomsday. "We're going."

Rilla blinked, not being in the loop. "Uh, where? Is it a mission?"

Steve looked at her seriously and Rilla could tell he was already back into hero mode. No wonder he was a natural leader. "I'll tell you. You're coming too Banner."

"Did you find the Cube?" he asked, eyes widening a bit.

"Yes, but come on, we need to get going."

Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Hulk and Girl Doomsday all left the control room and headed towards the airplane hanger, all five of them attracting attention as the group found a small Quinjet.

"Is Tony coming too?" she asked.

"He's got his own ride," Natasha answered and Rilla knew what she meant. The Iron Man suit. Rilla nodded as Steve told the plane technician to not even start with them as Hawkeye and Natasha became the pilots of their breakaway jet. Rilla strapped herself in, sitting next to Steve while Bruce chose to sit on the opposite side of the Quinjet.

"So _where_ are we going?" she asked again, narrowing her eyes at Steve.

"We know where Loki's going to strike next. Same place where the Tesseract is located," he debriefed to Rilla and Bruce.

"We're not going back to New York, are we?" Bruce grimaced. Last time he was in the Big Apple, he may have crushed Harlem as well as surrounding areas.

* * *

I know, a short chapter. I did that on purpose though because next chapter is _the_ huge awesome kickass fight and that itself needs its own undivided attention so here you go. Plus I wanted to explore more character development and dialogue.

Thank you so, so much for all the reviews and faves and alerts. Whenever I get the little notification on my phone I grin. So, thanks you awesome beautiful people :)


	7. Salvation and Extinction

I do not own the Marvel franchise. I just write fanfiction.

As always, I love you fellow readers :) I love writing this fic because of all the reviews and the comments and just all this love makes me super happy :D

This chapter includes some awesome action and more examples of just how scary gravitokinesis can be.

* * *

**Salvation or Extinction**

Like it were on the set of a James Bond film, the man behind the iron mask was pouring himself a drink as the God of Mischief just revealed to Tony Stark that the Chitauri invasion was moments away from becoming real. It was surreal; it boiled down to just two men having a conversation as the world was on the brink of either salvation or extinction.

"What have I to fear?" Loki asked the man, similar to how he asked that dying agent how he could possibly fail.

"The Avengers," Tony paused but Loki did not understand the collective term. He rolled his eyes and began to explain to the Asguardian what they were. "That's what we call ourselves. We're sort of like a team. A big, loving, dysfunctional as hell family. 'Earth's mightiest heroes'-type thing."

"Yes, I may have met them," Loki answered sarcastically. Even though he was supposed to lead this invasion upon humanity, he was a trickster by nature and riddles and twisted banter were sort of his thing. Like a moth to the flame, he allowed the Iron Man to speak.

"Granted, it takes us a while to get any traction. But let's do a headcount here. Your brother, the demigod," as he set down the drink, changing his mind about drinking it. "A super soldier, literally a living legend. A man with breathtaking anger-management issues, a couple of master assassins..." he hesitated as the thought of Rilla Cain entered his mind and he felt a ephemeral pang of guilt for treating her like shit when he first met her. "And last but not least, the human embodiment of Armageddon."

Damn, son.

"And you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them. Not a great plan. When they come, and I guarantee they will, they'll come for you," he grasped his drink in his hand, taking a sip.

"I have an army," Loki stated with utmost confidence.

"We have a Hulk."

"I thought the monster fell to his death," Loki thought out loud. He had not planned on keeping the giant around after it served his purpose.

Tony shook his head and didn't even bother telling the god that the Hulk was alive and quite well, actually. He continued to walk towards Loki. "You're missing the point. There is _no_ throne. There is no version of this where you come on top. Now, maybe your army comes and maybe we get our asses kicked, but it's all on you, Loki. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

.

.

As the passengers of the Quinjet prepared to land, Rilla looked outside the window to see mass hysteria in the streets and a thick grey cloud beginning to form above the throngs of people fleeing for their lives. She saw a straight beam of energy pointed to a massive black wormhole in the sky and her heart began to beat rapidly. This was nothing she was ever prepared for. Steve was silent, probably formulating a strategy for them as Bruce stayed calmly seated in his seat.

"It's horrible," she observed, not realizing she was talking out loud. "I've never seen people run like that."

"I have," Bruce commented on her observation. After all, he was used to people running around screaming because of something terrifying happening.

"Stark, we're on your three, headed northeast," Natasha radioed Tony Stark, urging Hawkeye to lead-pedal as fast as he could.

"What? Did you stop for a Happy Meal?" everyone in the Quinjet heard Stark's exclamation. "Swing up near Park, I'm going to lay them out for you."

Rilla sighed. Even in times like this Tony Stark still had a retort for everything. The jet suddenly swerved as Rilla, not properly buckled in, jerked to the other side of the jet, narrowly missing Bruce by about a foot. Natasha engaged the jet's firing weapon as Rilla quickly put on her seat belt looking at Bruce as if to apologize for almost slamming him. So much for all those driver's ed courses.

The jet continued to fire at the Chitauri, Rilla hardly believing her eyes at the view of all these ugly aliens on weird hovercrafts that were littered all over the place, shooting at them. As Hawkeye made a sudden turn, Rilla looked out to see none other than Thor fighting his brother on the rooftop. Half the burden weighing on her shoulders were immediately lifted, a stretched smile on her face.

"Thor!" she nearly leapt out of her seat as Bruce told her to "sit down, he's a God, he's fine."

Rilla folded her arms across her chest, not sorry for getting excited. Agent Barton began to land the jet as she was itching to get out and see Thor again and apologize for not rescuing him in time. However, in the midst of her sudden good mood, Loki aimed a shot at the jet's wing as everyone shook, Rilla clinging onto the straps of her seat for dear life.

"Mayday! Mayday!" Natasha yelled.

"Everyone, hold on!" Steve ordered. He didn't have to say that twice as Bruce's face began to contort into uneasiness and anxiety, which was a really, really bad sign. If him Hulking out on the helicarrier was bad, she didn't want to imagine seeing him in a tiny jet.

"No, no, it's okay Bruce, it's just a bit bumpy," Rilla strained, trying to calm down Dr. Banner as Barton finally managed to land the jet in a less than graceful fashion but at least they were alive, even without all the bells and whistles. They all paused for a moment as Rilla nearly sprung out of her seat, adrenaline pumping in her veins.

"Next time, I'm flying first class," Bruce cracked a joke and Rilla smiled at that one. He was okay for now.

"Let's go!" Steve, now in the persona of Captain America, was the first to leave, Rilla and Bruce quickly following behind Natasha and Barton, entering into the wreckage of New York City. "We got to get back up there!" he went head-first into the mania, the rest of them in a single file line of hiding behind cars and making a run for it.

"What's that?" Rilla looked up from running as the five of them immediately stopped in their tracks. As soon as Rilla said that, a loud mechanical roar vibrated in the air as something monstrous began to emerge from the swirling vortex.

"Damn," Barton uttered.

"What the hell is _that_?" Rilla's eyes were enormously wide, and even then she couldn't possibly view the entirely of what looked like an armored space whale. If creatures like this existed in space then she was never going up there.

Its screech rung through everyone's eardrums, Bruce clasping his hands over his ears as Natasha visibly cringed from the noise. This alien monster thing looked like something out of a H.R. Giger illustration which was nightmare-inducing on its own. The five Avengers could do nothing but just stare in horror at this giant reptoid whale thing slicing through buildings and just flying through the beloved streets of New York City.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. never prepared us for this," Natasha spoke slowly in horrific awe, terrified yet amazed at everything unfolding around them. More of the Chitauri were leaping off their armored space leviathan, clinging to buildings and scraping them like nails on a chalkboard.

"We need to run!" Captain America waved them over to an abandoned taxi car, all five of them crouching behind it like a barricade. Rilla sat between Barton and Bruce, merely acknowledging the marksman's presence with a nod. There was nothing to say that really needed to be said. He was on their side now.

All of a sudden, explosions. Everywhere. For a split second, Rilla saw a flash of gold and green riding above them, leading a barrage of light and energy upon them. Cars were flipping over, men and women screaming bloody murder as they became no more than targets for the picking.

"They're fish in a barrel down there," Steve looked from his position from the bridge to look down at the fleeing masses. Natasha flipped out two guns and began firing and Barton scurried to another taxi cab to stake out the enemy.

A heavy handful of the Chitauri appeared before them and Steve was torn between staying to fight on the ground or helping innocent people to safety.

"Now's probably a good time to lose control, Bruce," Rilla gently nudged the doctor with her elbow, "We could really use your anger."

"That's my secret," he smirked at her as he stood up and began to walk quite some ways away from the rest of the Avengers, turning his back to her. "I stay in control because I'm always angry."

Perhaps she should take a page or two out of his book.

Natasha noticed what just happened between the two of them, feeling confident they all could work together. "It's good. You can go, captain. We're fine."

"Think you can hold them off?" he asked, concerned for his team mates and not wanting to leave them unless they were absolutely capable of fighting back against the alien invaders. All four of them nodded, Hawkeye's quiver whirring as he gripped his recurve bow, ready to make up for being on the bad side for so long.

Hawkeye drew the first shot, aiming an arrow right square in the head of the alien enemy. Rilla took this as the go-signal, clenching her fists as she began to concentrate within herself. She still wasn't feeling one hundred percent but she would have to change that rather quickly. Right now, New York City was depending on her efforts to save the city.

.

.

Black Widow fired bullet after bullet as Girl Doomsday helped her clear the area in order to create enough of a buffer between them and the citizens of a stranded tour bus that Hawkeye was positioned at. The Hulk was off doing his own thing, smashing and crushing the Chitauri to thin out the swarm headed towards them. Frightened men, women and children were clamoring at the exits in order to make a run for their lives, each of them trying to catch a glimpse of their saviors.

"Watch out!" Barton could see over her shoulder two Chitauri aiming their weapons at her head as Rilla perked up, seeing her next two opponents. She had been relying on her gravity balls to send them scattering but it wasn't killing them. Rilla knew of a solution to permanently rid the Chitauri but it wasn't safe and it wasn't exactly orthodox.

"Natasha! Barton! Stay out of my way!" she yelled at them, "I don't want you getting sucked in!"

"Sucked into what?" Natasha broke her serious frame of mind as she wasn't quite following what Rilla was saying.

"This!"

Rilla's hazel eyes began to darken as she held out her hands, stretching her arms as far as possible as she kept warning Barton and Natasha to steer clear. Rilla had only ever done this once, and that was four years ago in the field where the meteoroid hit. Like Tony Stark had insinuated, Rilla was in fact quite familiar with black holes. She was pulling gravity downward, slowly backing away from the Chitauri who were shooting at her left and right. The ground around them seemed to shake as a small vortex began to chaotically swirl in the space between her hands. Even Barton paused to look at the scene unfolding, amazed yet unsure of what the hell she was doing.

Rilla could create black holes through gravitokinesis. By funneling the channel of gravity directly ahead of her, she was sucking in everything through a portal she created. She was immune to being sucked in but the same could not be said for the unfortunate Chitauri being torn down to a molecular level as the black hole began to grow. And grow.

Oh shit.

"Rilla! Stop! It's growing too fast!" Natasha screamed at her, now worried about the black hole more than any alien threat. No wonder she was named Girl Doomsday: she now had two ways to destroy the planet. "Stop!"

But Rilla couldn't stop. How stupid of her to think she could actually control the ability. Gravity was enough of a bitch to handle but she had to extend it to black hole creation. She just had to attract that space rock from the sky. Granted, she was wiping out the Chitauri faster than all four of them together but Natasha and Barton were scared that she would accidentally suck in a person.

It was like a bad dream. She began to sweat, nearly trapped in this stance where the black hole kept enlarging and growing. It was almost three feet now in width and gaining power. Rilla could hear Natasha screaming at her to stop, to collapse the black hole. She gnashed her teeth so hard she felt herself chip a tooth as she tried to bring her hands together. It was like trying to make two north ends of a magnet attract.

Slowly though, Rilla was putting a lid on the black hole. Three feet became a foot and a half to six inches. Feeling the palms of her hands finally touch, she dropped to her knees and had the overwhelming sensation of wanting to pass out but she kicked it into overdrive and stood right back up. No more crumbling. Even if it killed her, Rilla was not going to curl up in a corner and allow herself to be a burden to the team.

"Just stick to whatever you were doing before!" Barton yelled at her before he got pummeled to the ground. Rilla bounded, shooting a swirling ball of gravitational energy to send them flying upwards as the aliens crashed onto the ground, immobilized. "Thanks."

Rilla tilted her head, giving the agent a quick flash of her teeth. "No problem."

Seconds later, their leader rejoined them and they all heard a crackling in the sky. Oh no not another space whale, Rilla winced but then lightning struck the ground and the Asguardian appeared before them. Rilla ran ahead of the captain, her lips widening into a relieved smile.

"Thor! I'm so sorry, I couldn't-," she was quieted by the god.

"I do not blame you in the slightest, Cain woman," he assured her as he began to tell Steve that the Cube's barrier was impenetrable. Which meant it was impossible to break and Rilla's heart dropped to her stomach again. She could hear the Hulk in the distance, probably attracted by the sound of thunder.

"Thor's right. We got to deal with these guys."

Lo and behold, Tony Stark finally spoke loudly through everyone's ear pieces (miraculously Rilla's was working again) as the Hulk finally arrived to their little group, eager to see that the man who made it thunder seemed familiar to him. Rilla could have sworn he also look at her but maybe it was just a trick of the eye.

"We fight together, as a team." Steve spoke proudly.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor stated, the fury in his eyes growing.

"Yeah, get in line," Hawkeye responded dully as he plucked through the arrows he held. Rilla huffed. Start taking numbers now because there was a waiting list for revenge against Loki. Especially for killing Coulson; that was her reason.

"Save it you two," Captain America ended it as he continued to talk. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and we're going to do that just that. Without him, these aliens have no command."

"I'm bringing the party to you guys," Stark said as Rilla looked up in the sky to see a small red dot zooming towards them. Judging by what the man meant by party, he had a vastly different definition than Rilla had. Oh, too different as the armored leviathian released a roar and began to slide towards them.

"I fail to see the celebrations," Thor muttered and if they weren't about to kick ass right now, Rilla would have laughed.

The Hulk's attention was now attracted to the giant space whale headed their way as Rilla got into a defensive stance. No more black holes; that was a horrible idea despite its efficiency to destroy the Chitauri. Perhaps it was an ability better left untouched as the Hulk delivered a strong punch right down on the head of the creature as the team began to huddle closer, guts flying everywhere thanks to Tony and his true aim.

Rilla could have jumped for joy, finally feeling like she was a part of something as her fellow Avengers geared up for a long, nasty battle.

.

.

"Listen up, everyone. Until that portal is closed, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Be our eyes. Call out strays and patterns," the captain began to hand out orders like he was back in World War II, which was not a bad thing in the slightest. "Stark, you got the perimeter. Anythings gets more than three blocks out, turn it back or turn it to ash-,"

"Roger that, Rogers," Tony answered, his voice still hinting a small playful tone as he grabbed Barton by the shirt as the two men were flying up in the air.

"Thor, you got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning so light the bastards up!" he told the Asguardian as Thor spun his hammer and propelled himself into the air.

"You, me and Rilla stay on the ground," he turned to Natasha and Rilla. "We keep the fighting here. Rilla, act as our defense. You're the closest thing to extra-terrestrial we got against these aliens."

Rilla nodded. Good. It was smart of the captain to assign her as defense; after her black hole disaster, she could certainly take it down a notch or so.

"Hulk?" Steve called out to the green giant, the former scientist hearing his name being said. "Smash."

Nobody needed to tell him twice as he sprung off the ground and leapt towards an unlucky Chitauri, slamming them against walls. Rilla caught herself watching the magnificent display of the Hulk just taking out everything in his path and near-flying in the air.

Snapping out of it, Rilla once again concentrated on her abilities, promising herself to not endanger her team's lives as the captain and Black Widow began attacking the Chitauri around them. Several aliens were soaring above them as Rilla took it upon herself to hover above Steve and Natasha, manipulating gravity so she could get a better view.

"Good idea," Natasha commented on her recent move and Rilla internally beamed. Anything was better than Natasha screaming at her like before. As Chitauri flew above them, Rilla made a snapping motion with her fingers as she created an aura around herself. Suddenly, she became the point of gravity as four Chitauri crafts were inexplicably drawn towards her. Essentially, her body became a makeshift gravitational pole as the aliens suddenly were deflected upon impact, their airships crashing into the ground.

A smirk grew on Girl Doomsday's face. This was a much better utilization of her abilities than just outright offense. Steve was onto something. No wonder he took up the mantle as leader of the Avengers. No time to ponder as she made a grabbing motion with her hands, pulling another aircraft into her gravity aura as the Chitauri were deflected upon impact, making it easier for Natasha and Steve to catch them off guard.

* * *

Director Peter Laroche was informed of an attack on New York City, like all government officials were alerted as he turned on the flat screen in his office to start watching the damage unfold.

Damn aliens. Laroche was angrily sipping his hot beverage, immediately absorbed into the shaky news camera reel of the events unfolding before his very eyes. Aliens were flying in and out, firing off strange bombs of energy as the cameras focused on a strange group of three people on the ground. He had never seen the red head before or the weird man decked out in American colors. What a ragtag bunch of freaks, all defending them against these aliens. He was glad he was underground hundreds of miles away from New York.

But he did recognize the woman levitating above the man and the red head. He spat out his drink, all his important papers ruined with spit and coffee as he froze the image on the screen and pressed the zoom button on the remote. It was a blurry picture but he recognized that half-shaven haircut and the thin frame of the woman.

So that's why Director Fury just waltzed into NSURF and took his prisoner: to fashion her into some superhero. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat; he couldn't believe this shit. Marilla Cain wasn't meant for the public to praise her as some sort of hero. Girl Doomsday was labeled as a threat to mankind, just like those aliens attacking NYC. There was a reason why she was at NSURF and the gall of Director Fury to pluck her and dress her up like a Thanksgiving turkey made the NSURF director's blood boil.

Marilla Cain was going to come back here whether this Fury wanted her to or not. Soon enough, Fury would realize his mistake of releasing the young woman among the public once again. Laroche called his assistant for another cup of coffee as he replayed the scene of the young woman hovering above her little team, unaware of him menacingly looking on.

* * *

It felt like hours since Rilla Cain entered the fray and by the looks of it, it wasn't ending anytime soon.

"Captain, none of this is going to mean a damn thing if that portal isn't closed. Look at Rilla, I can see her getting tired," Natasha spoke the ugly truth to Steve as the captain raised his head to look at the young woman above them.

"Our biggest guns can't touch it," Steve frowned.

"Well, maybe it's not about guns," she kept her eye glued to Stark Tower, not having to say a word about her desire to get up on the top and see if she could close the portal herself.

Rilla lowered herself down, panting as she walked over to her team mates, almost not wanting Natasha to leave them. She knew better though as she merely stood by Steve, waiting for his reaction to her unspoken request.

"If you want to get up there, you're going to need a ride," Steve told her.

"I got a ride," she tossed the weapon onto the ground and back away from Rilla and Steve, "I could use a boost though."

The two of them nodded as Rilla lent her powers as Steve raised his shield as a sort of trampoline for the spy to jump off of.

"Be careful," Rilla didn't want Natasha to get hurt in the process. She still remembered leaving her by the column on the helicarrier and how injured she looked then.

"I'll be fine. It's gonna be fun," as the red haired woman took off running. Rilla waited for the right moment to lift her up as Steve angled his shield up towards the sky. In a flash, Natasha bounced off as Rilla gave her a small lift, the woman gripping onto a aircraft passing by.

"No way I could have done that," Rilla said after the fact and Steve agreed. Natasha Romanoff was on a whole other dimension of 'super spy'.

"Back to action. Cover me Rilla," Steve noticed a group of Chitauri forming around them, Rilla once again floating her body in mid air and creating a similar gravity aura like before.

"You got it," she affirmed as she became the pole of self-contained gravity. And then Tony Stark slammed into her. He must have been pulled into her field and bonked into her. Rilla tumbled to the ground.

"Sorry, Dooms," he now had a new nickname for her as Rilla was too preoccupied to make a comment about the name as she joined the two men blasting and deflecting the Chitauri that surrounded them. Easy come easy go as Stark blasted off again.

"He's warming up to you now," Steve offhandedly remarked, slicing an alien with his shield without breaking a sweat. How he was able to do that Rilla would never know.

"I couldn't tell," she flatly replied, preferring to stay on the ground now as she formed her signature gravity ball and projected the energy onto four Chitauri aliens approaching, repelling them as they crashed into a row of vehicles. Hopefully those people had car insurance against aliens. If not, they were screwed.

"Rilla, I have to go! Can you handle fending them off on your own?" he seriously asked her. "There are civilians and I-,"

"Yeah, just go!" she cut him off, knowing that Steve would never refuse helping cornered citizens. He ran off, leaving Girl Doomsday by herself with a handful of Chitauri aliens. "Why did I agree to do this?" she muttered under her breath as she formed a field of gravitokinetic energy and increased the amount of gravity upon the aliens, slamming onto the ground and unable to get up due to the heavy pressure. Unaffected, Rilla began to kick their heads in. Again, not orthodox but who was counting?

.

.

Rilla's body was aching from all the energy she had exerted not only from the helicarrier hijacking but also this ongoing battle. She hadn't heard word of Natasha, Barton, Thor or anybody and it had been a while since Steve left to save the civilians at the bank.

It seemed like the battle was going to shit. Rilla heard pained groans from the Hulk in the distance and she was worried he was being shot down. Rilla had to go find her team as she ran off into random streets, hoping to find someone.

She caught up with Thor and Steve, quickly coming to their aid as Thor began to get ready for another round of battle. Rilla wasn't so sure about Steve. He was a super soldier but he was still human and like her, humans tired themselves.

"Are you alright, Rilla?" Steve asked her, feeling bad he left her behind even though she was capable of fending for herself.

"Fine," she answered even though it was further from the truth. She couldn't afford to feel any less than fine at the moment.

"Can anyone copy?" Natasha's voice rung in Rilla's ears. "I can shut the portal down!"

_Maybe there is a God_, Rilla's mind felt relieved but the feeling didn't last very long as Stark intervened and said to wait.

"I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know exactly where to put it."

Steve, Thor and Rilla fell silent. Tony Stark was going to fly a nuke into the portal. Tony Stark was going to risk his life for everyone. The same guy that labelled her as Coulson's daughter and a threat was actually not so bad a person. Steve tried to tell him that it was a one-way trip but the Iron Man wouldn't budge. He was being so selfish he was sacrificing himself.

Maybe she should have given him more room to give him another chance. He was rude and narcissistic and difficult, yes, but he still had pretty good morals at the core of it.

Everyone was watching as Tony Stark flew into the portal, nuke in hand. Seconds later, Chitauri began to drop like flies. The leviathans were also affected, crashing into buildings and skyscrapers. Rilla guessed they were all connected like some hive mind and that taking out the mother brain really destroyed them. She stood close to Steve, suddenly feeling a bit lost among the destruction.

"Close the portal," Captain America gave the command as Rilla slumped over, her eyes cast towards the ground.

At first, nothing. Then she heard Thor recognize a shape falling from the exact position where the wormhole was once formed. Rilla looked up as she could not believe that Tony Stark survived and was falling. Falling really fast, actually.

"He's not slowing down," it was like Thor read her mind.

The god prepared to catch him but the world's leading expect on gamma radiation leapt out of nowhere and grabbed the puny man from air as the two of them slid across cars and the street. The three of them ran towards where the Hulk and Tony had landed, wanting a closer look at the man who saved NYC. Even in his Hulk form, Bruce's awareness of health must have seeped through as the green man bent over his friend. Rilla removed his mask.

"He's not dead, is he?" she nearly stuttered, seeing the man's closed eyes as Steve inspected him. "He can't go yet, he's beginning to grow on me."

No one answered her as the four of them stood above Tony's body, not sure whether to grieve or ask for help. Then the Hulk roared in his ear and all the melodrama faded away. Stark blinked awake, gasping for breath like he had woken up from a bad dream. He looked around and saw the four of them above him, almost as if watching them peacefully.

"What the hell?" he spoke. "What just happened? Unless it was her, nobody should have kissed me," Tony raised a brow at Rilla, who stuck out her tongue at him in a friendly but annoyed manner.

"We won, Stark. All of us," Steve seemed lost in thought, hardly believing that it was over.

"Yay!" Tony tried to cheer but he was exhausted. "Mazel tov. Good job, everyone," at this point, he wasn't even excited. "Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day off and do nothing. Have you ever tried shawarma?" he randomly asked everyone.

_Poor guy lost his mind in space_, Rilla was half-serious. She never even heard of sharma or whatever Tony just said. Maybe his words were jumbled up.

"There's a shawarma joint two blocks from here. I don't know what it is but I want to try it," Tony rambled, earning a small laugh from Rilla.

"We are not finished yet," Thor ruined the fun as he stared off into the direction where Stark Tower was.

"Oh right, Loki," sighing loudly, Rilla crossed her arms across her chest as the five of them made their way to Tony's former building, ready to face the crowning loser of the battle.

The five Avengers, plus Natasha and Barton who joined up with them, faced a battered and bruised Loki (no doubt the handiwork of the Hulk) as the Asguardian pulled himself up and faced all seven Avengers cornering him. Everyone was pissed off, including Rilla as she stood behind a threatening Hawkeye with his bow aimed right at the trickster.

"If it's all the same to you," he breathed heavily, "I'll have that drink now."

Rilla frowned, keeping her arms tightly folded against her chest as she narrowed her hazel eyes into more of a glare at the god. The nerve of this guy. _Seriously._

* * *

What a whirlwind of chapter. Canon movie events are coming to a close as we move to the second act of this fic: evident by the_ lovely_ cameo of Director Laroche. He's such a pleasant person to be around :P

Next chapter will open with news coverage of the attack, Loki and Thor's departure and Rilla adjusting to life afterwards. And perhaps a growing affection for a certain someone? Ooooh.


	8. Thinking of Marilla

I do not own the Marvel franchise. I just write fanfiction.

The ever charming Director Laroche is in this chapter and if you thought you hated him before, you're really going to hate him now.

Also, Tony and Rilla began developing their friendship, Thor drinks an entire pitcher of water and we meet two people once important to Rilla.

* * *

**Thinking About Marilla**

Tony wanted to try shawarma and nobody could refuse the dinner request of a guy who just prevented a nuke hitting Manhattan. So all battle-worn seven Avengers, still dressed up in their outfits and uniforms, followed Iron Man to the local shawarma joint. The place was called Shawarma Palace and it was quite a hole in the wall restaurant. Hardly recognizable aside from the debris strewn everywhere. Strange enough, it was the only food joint that hadn't been completely devastated by the attack. It was pretty much the only restaurant even remotely in business and totally empty too.

"Seven of the best shawarmas," Tony ordered for the team to the only two people working the restaurant, an older woman in her late forties and her husband. Shocked by the alien attack and the heroes who saved NYC in her restaurant, she quickly rattled off their order and the man began to cook some meat on the spit, humming a wordless tune.

"That was quick," Natasha commented, nudging Barton's arm. Perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. had a superhero tab she was unaware of. That would certainly help with groceries.

Steve and Tony put together two smaller tables to form a longer table as Rilla took her place between the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist and the slightly embarrassed scientist. Poor Bruce was naked once he transformed back into his regular self and literally had to run to the nearest Goodwill to get some slacks and a shirt. After all, nobody could say no to a naked gamma radiation specialist.

A soft blush crossed the young woman's face, realizing what she had just been thinking of as she quickly shook her head, attracting the attention of Tony Stark. A grin stretched his face as he playfully put his chin on his hand, looking at her.

"What?" she asked, her eyes shifting.

"Nothing, Dooms," and the tone he used annoyed her. Now he was calling her Dooms and it was like one of those unwanted high school nicknames.

"This shawarma, what sort of meal is it?" Thor asked Tony, genuinely curious as to what this sort of cuisine was. "Is it meat? A vegetarian dish? I could use a hearty meal after our victorious battle."

_He'so cute when he talks_, Rilla giggled to herself. It was almost a shame he had to leave soon.

"I dunno," Tony shrugged, "but I want to try it."

Rilla opened her napkin as she set in on her lap like a proper lady. Four years of restricted living did that to a girl. Tony snorted at her manners, calling her the Queen of England.

"Well, it's better than naming me a walking cataclysm," she remarked, reminding him of the exact term he used. Tony almost looked taken aback but the expression on his face quickly changed.

"You are though," Barton interjected, as if he were to tell his experience of watching Rilla lose control of the black hole she had formed. "I mean that as a compliment."

"I was really worried though," Natasha added, "you looked like you were frozen."

Steve perked up at the mention of being frozen, although in Rilla's case she was only suspended for a couple minutes and not seven decades. "Frozen?" he repeated.

Rilla wanted the lady to hurry up with their damn shawarma so people would have their mouths stuffed instead of making her relive how she couldn't close the black hole.

"A black hole?" Bruce heard the magic words as he slightly turned his chair towards the young woman, "I forgot you could create those."

Bruce was only being curious but it wasn't warmly greeted by Rilla; it was like her asking him "oh I forgot you were a scientist as well as a green rage monster". She would never say that of course, but that's what it felt like.

"I'm not making them again. Not after that," she muttered the last part as the woman brought out three pitchers of ice cold water.

"Ah, refreshments!" and Thor chugged down an entire pitcher of water, much to the chagrin of Natasha and Steve. Tony burst out laughing, Rilla stifled her laugh as Bruce looked on with an amused expression.

"That leaves two for _us_," Tony raised both his brows as he took one of the remaining two pitchers and poured himself a glass, offering the pitcher to Rilla as she accepted the water and poured it over her glass. She had shaking hands though as her finger slipped and the pitcher fell onto the ground, spilling water over the table, her lap and some on Bruce's pant leg.

"Oh no, those were your new pants!" she was mortified, her cheeks burning. The guy hadn't been dressed for more than twenty minutes and Rilla had just spilled water over him.

"They're just Goodwill pants," he assured her, finding it funny that she would bend herself out of shape over someone's secondhand pants.

She couldn't get a break today, could she? Now there was only one pitcher of water left as Rilla slumped into her seat and glared at her half-full glass, cursing the forces above that while she could fight alien invaders, she could not pour a freaking simple glass of water.

"How about the less dangerous people drink first?" Natasha joked as she quickly grabbed the last pitcher and poured water for her and Barton and then passing it on to Steve. Poor Bruce was the only guy without water, ready to flag down the deli woman for another pitcher for their table.

"You can have mine," Rilla gently pushed her glass with her finger, inching it over to his side of the table, suddenly not thirsty. He probably deserved it more than her anyway.

"I couldn't," Bruce said.

Tony snorted, not believing the man wasn't taking her water. "Take the H20 from Dooms, big guy."

Right when Bruce reluctantly accepted Rilla's water, the older woman finally showed up, seven deli baskets on both her arms as she slid out seven different varieties of shawarma towards the Avengers.

"Finally, I could have died over here," Tony exaggerated as he bit into dinner with a disapproving Steve looking onward.

"I take it that you don't say grace," he stated as Tony looked at him mid-bite. Rilla didn't take Steve as a particular religious guy but then again, 1940s guy.

"Grff," he spoke, obviously trying to say 'Grace', earning a smile from Natasha and Rilla. Rilla chewed on her gyro-like sandwich, pausing to look at her team mate every now and then. Perhaps he wasn't totally an asshole and even though he hadn't directly apologized for being rude to her earlier, he certainly wasn't ragging on her past as much.

Nobody talked for the duration of the meal, which was oddly satisfying. Rilla had a shawarma that was pita bread filled with lamb and veal with a bunch of vegetables stuffed to the brim as she took small bites, careful to not eat too much at one time. She looked up from her meal to find her team mates eating their sandwiches in their own distinct ways. Thor, hailing from Asguard, was really into his sandwich as he took big bites. Completely the opposite of her.

Natasha was eating her shawarma politely, taking a medium bite every few seconds or so, completely chewing her food and exchanging glances with her friend Hawkeye. Barton had his deli basket in his lap, scooping up loose meat with the remaining pieces of bread. She also noticed how relaxed he was around Natasha, resting his legs on Natasha's chair as he dug into his meal. Rilla was a little jealous of their closeness.

Steve was resting his head on his arm, slowly eating his food. He probably never had Arabian food before and was inspecting his shawarma.

Tony was just reveling in his dinner, even raising his hand and pointing at their table for another round of shawarma. He caught Rilla looking at him as she quickly hung her head, finishing her meal.

Rilla finally noticed how Bruce ate his food, careful not to catch herself staring. He was nodding with every chew, suggesting that he liked the shawarma as he began to eat his second one. She returned back to her own plate as she picked up her half-eaten shawarma and continued eating, wanting to stay hungry enough so she could bite into her second shawarma.

* * *

In a small farm house on a few acres of farmland, an older woman of fifty-five or so was sitting on the couch with her eyes glued to the television. She had brown-grey hair in a braid as she waved to her husband to come join her and watch the news.

"Coming, Sandra. What's got you tied up in a bunch?" the grey-haired man of sixty asked her as he sat down as the woman turned up the volume.

"I'm Pilar Edwards and this KNKY News at Nine. By now, the news of the extraterrestrial attack on New York City has spread rapidly over the globe and the rise of a new group named the Avengers have taken the world by storm. Seven identified individuals with amazing talents saved the world from this invasion. Although the names of some of these heroes aren't confirmed, we have some blurry footage of many cellphone users who have managed to take pictures of our heroes."

Somewhat shaky blurry images of the seven Avengers flashed up on the screen as Sandra looked at each of them individually.

"It seems they're not telling us everything," her husband mentioned.

Sandra nodded. "Well, honey, you should know by the now the government doesn't reveal everything," and let out a small sigh at the end.

William put a hand on her shoulder as the married couple continued to watch the news, changing channels to get different glimpses of the event.

"I love you Thor!" a young woman screamed out from the crowd, proudly displaying a homemade hammer and a red hoodie with 'THOR' written on it with black sharpie. _Click._

A younger married couple expressing concerns of the identity of these heroes.

_Click._

"I wanna be that girl who can float!" a little girl of six suddenly appeared and tried to jump in the air as her father told her to settle down.

_Click._

"They're a weird bunch, that's that," an elderly man commented.

_Click._

"That redhead and the arrow guy, they got something goin' on!" a teenage guy waggled his ears. "They had swag all over the place!"

William shook his head. "Kids these days."

Sandra cast her eyes downward as she leaned on her husband's shoulder. All this talk of superheroes and weirdos reminded her of a weirdo that once lived with them in Virginia. She reached out for her husband's hand.

"Sandra...you're thinking about her again aren't you?" he asked her.

"I'm always thinking about Marilla," she squeezed William's hand as she turned off the television, right before more images were about to be revealed. "I've been thinking..."

"Of what?" William carefully asked. However, he could predict what she was about to say to him.

His wife's chin began to tremble as her earrings dangled along with the shake of her head. "Did we do what was right? By her, by us?"

William hushed her as he wrapped an arm around the woman he loved. "The director told us it was for her own good. Sandra, it wouldn't be safe with Marilla living with us. Not with her..._abilities_," he tried to explain once more what the scientists, agents and director had told them at the time.

"God, we're horrible people. We're too scared of our own baby so we let strangers lock her away," and there was no stopping an older woman from crying as she cried into her husband's shoulder, William trying to calm her down. He didn't understand the sudden emotion.

"Sandra. Sandra, calm yourself down, honey. She's not dead-,"

The phone suddenly rang as William took it as an opportunity to answer it, leaving his sobbing overly emotional wife on the couch as he picked up the headset. "Hello?"

"Mr. Cain?" a man's voice that sounded vaguely familiar asked for him.

"Yes?" William answered.

"This is Director Peter Laroche at the Nevada Secure Underground Research Facility. I have some bad news for you," the new director spoke into the receiver.

William only remembered Laroche as the agent who apprehended their daughter and gave them a tour of NSURF the day of her imprisonment. "What is it? What happened?"

Peter Laroche hesitated before speaking into the phone again. "Well, the bad news is your daughter has escaped my facility."

William's heart nearly stopped and for an old man, that was significantly dangerous. Sandra stopped her crying as she walked over to where her husband was talking on the phone, mouthing out who he was talking to. William held up his hand as he waited for the director to describe what happened when she escaped.

"A few days ago, she broke out of NSURF and she took out a few of the scientists and agents there, some still in critical condition. We believed the visor would have suppressed her talents but we were wrong," the lies he was feeding the old man were despicable as William believed every single one of them. His poor heart was sinking into his chest, William's face turning pale with every passing word that Laroche spoke.

"Marilla Cain has seriously injured many of my fellow workers and colleagues. I am calling because as of right now, I am relocating you two immediately. I am worried for your safety and the fear that your daughter will try to track you down and possibly hurt you due to deluded feelings of revenge."

Man, he was just laying it on thick. Laroche wasn't grinning on the outside but he was certainly pleased with how easily Marilla's father believed him. A minute passed but there was no answer. Laroche became annoyed at the lack of the response as he repeated Mr. Cain's name. Muffling sounds could be heard as a shriek finally ripped through Laroche's head.

"WILLIAM!" she screamed again and the phone call was dropped, leaving an irritated yet somewhat satisfied director on the other line.

* * *

It had only been twenty-four hours since Loki unleashed the Chitauri on New York City. Only a day since Rilla Cain and the Avengers kicked Loki's ass and destroyed the alien army. Although her back and her knees were killing her, Rilla had certainly cleaned up for the farewell of Thor and the returning of the war criminal Loki back to his own world. All seven of them were in the park and with the exception of Thor, six of them were in plain clothes. Director Fury had set up a hotel room for Rilla to sleep in and she even found a nice set of clean clothes in the hotel dresser drawers. Despite all the secrets he withheld, he really was the first father-like figure she had in a long time.

Wearing a blue v-neck top with a white cardigan, denim jeans and brown flats, Rilla joined her team mates in saying bye to Thor. She secretly laughed at Loki's current state; wearing a muzzle like a dog and had a whimpering look in his eyes.

"It was a pleasure fighting alongside you, Rilla Cain," Thor bowed his head as Rilla smiled. She was really going to miss the blond god of thunder. He seemed like a good friend to have around.

"Same here, Thor," she wistfully said to him.

Rilla was there when Bruce carefully placed the Tesseract cube into its compartment shell, watching with interest as Thor carried the Cube in the crook of his arm along with his trusty Mjolnir, Loki grabbing onto the compartment as with one last look, Thor turned the key and the two Asguardians vanished with choppy blue light.

Nobody moved for a second and she was sure everyone was a little sad to see Thor go. Certainly he would come back soon, right? Wasn't his lady friend human or something?

Everyone began to say goodbye to each other as Natasha came up to Rilla first, a small but honest smile on her face. "You're not so bad for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. A bit rough around the edges but..." she trailed off.

Rilla nodded. "You're pretty cool too. You and Barton out there, just working as a team. Maybe we could all do something together again?" the last statement was a bit awkward to end but Natasha agreed to it. Rilla could have sworn she saw a tiny pink tint on the agent's face when she mentioned Barton. The two women shook hands as Natasha went over to the S.H.I.E.L.D. car and handed Bruce his things as she and Agent Barton both got into the car. She hoped to see them again

"It's an honor to have met you, Rilla," Steve came up to her and also shook her hand, a warm and friendly close-lipped smile on the captain's face. Honestly, Steve was still one of the people she met that she felt close to since she became part of the Avengers. He was like the older brother she never had, for lack of a better cliche to use. "You and Natasha are both amazing women."

"Thanks, Steve. You really did all the hard work though. Saving people, leading us into battle...I bet they're gonna make a movie about you," she happily predicted, although she was really just complimenting him to the best of her ability. She would gladly have Steve as their leader any day.

As everyone began to part ways, Rilla saw Tony Stark and Bruce hop into a shiny sports car. Wanting to say good-bye to Bruce and even Tony despite their rough patch, she quickly ran to the passenger side door where Bruce was sitting in.

"This is a science bros. only trip, no meddling kids are allowed," Tony remarked although he sounded a lot more playful than just being rude as his eyes . "For having such a small body, you certainly do not live up to your name, Rilla."

At least he stopped calling her Dooms for now. Rilla ignored Stark's comment about her body as she said, "I just wanted to say bye."

Bruce raised his head towards her with an appreciative look in his eyes. "Thanks for uh, making sure I didn't fall to my death. That's a first for me."

A small blush grew on Rilla's cheeks as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Of course. Anytime. I mean, _no_, not anytime. I don't want that to happen again but if it did...yeah," she turned her head away from her self-made embarrassment as Tony interrupted the moment.

"Oh, and you're not going to thank me for saving everyone? Hurts real deep, Rilla."

Rilla placed her hands on her hips, tilting her head back towards him with disbelief written all over her face. "The walking cataclysm is forever in debt to Tony Stark," she borrowed a page out of Tony Stark's sarcastic remark book as she purposely used the 'walking cataclysm' phrase Tony had said about her. "I guess you're not too bad."

"Next week you'll be singing my praises. Adios!" and before she knew it, the two scientifically gifted men drove off, leaving a slightly red Rilla behind. Her face scrunched up as she replayed that stupid sentence in her head.

_God Rilla, you can't even speak to someone smart without making you sound like a total moron_, she rubbed her hand through the not shaven part of her head. Bruce was a nice, even funny scientific guy with the ability to turn into the Hulk but at least he wasn't a walking doofus like Rilla.

After everyone had left, Rilla still stood in the park, sitting on a bench by herself. The only problem was, what the hell was she going to do now? A half hour later, Director Fury approached her. She thought he wasn't keeping tabs on the Avengers unless he absolutely had to so he must have come here for another reason.

"You're wondering where to go next," he observed, sitting on the bench next to her.

Keeping her hands clasped together, Rilla turned her head towards him. "Yeah. Everyone has a life outside this but...I _don't_. I lost my life when I lived at NSURF. I'm not a _real_ agent like Natasha or Barton and I'm not smart enough to contribute towards society like Tony and Bruce can. Steve even has stuff to do, things to learn about the 21st century..." Doubt began to chip away at Rilla's esteem, her feet kicking together.

"I could always use an agent like you around at S.H.I.E.L.D. The reason why I freed you from NSURF is because I saw something in you that asshole Director didn't," he was referring to Laroche and Rilla couldn't agree any more with his choice of words. "With the right amount of training, you could develop into something greater."

The offer was incredibly tempting. She was already Agent Cain but if she worked at S.H.I.E.L.D. full time, she would really gain experience. She'd have a purpose. Maybe she could even take Maria Hill's job, at which the mental image in her head made her smile a bit.

But she remembered Phil Coulson and a frown replaced her smile. He was so devoted to his job and sadly, that devotion killed him. Rilla wanted to thank Fury for releasing her from NSURF, but she felt like she had one more thing she wanted to do. Something she never had the chance to do while at NSURF.

"I think I want to go back to school."

* * *

So, that's that. We have a small time skip next chapter and the second arc of this story truly begins.


	9. No Sugar or Cream

I do not own the Marvel franchise. I just write fanfiction.

So, great news. I recently adopted a little tortoiseshell kitten and I named her Natasha after Natasha Romanoff :) Anyway, thanks again for all the attention and faves and reviews. I'm always basking in the glow of love this fic receives, you lovely lovely people.

There's been a three month time skip, fyi. Laroche fires people, Rilla is hired, fired and then hired again and peek through a window in the life of Sandra Cain.

* * *

**No Sugar or Cream**

Nichelle was tired of constantly fetching coffee for her boss. The man downed more caffeine than the countries that produced the cocoa bean. As Nichelle felt the heat of the to-go cup warm her palms, she realized she should be grateful that she was even hired in the first place, considering she only had two years experience of being a secretary for the local ophthalmology clinic.

"Here you go, Director. Eight o'clock roast," she handed her boss the coffee cup as she began to make her exit.

Director Peter Laroche was a rather busy man. First of all, he had to relocate Marilla Cain's mother out of Kentucky in order to keep up the facade that her daughter would come after her. He had heard of the news regarding William Cain's death but he didn't feel too much for that. Sandra Cain was now living in New York City in a nice one bedroom apartment.

As usual, there was only one problem racking the director's brain. Marilla Ruby Cain had once again disappeared without a trace, and this time he wasn't the one who deleted her records. He had scoured every social networking site, every online banking account and even Social Security to even find a trace of her. Other than a blurry image of her fighting against the Chitauri, Laroche had no leads on where Girl Doomsday was.

He blamed S.H.I.E.L.D. That dumbass director of theirs could just waltz in and take her from underneath his nose and send her out as a symbol of victory. Laroche cracked his knuckles as he took a long gulp of his dark roast coffee, no sugar or cream. Laroche had fired many people for that mistake and cut salaries to make a point. Laroche was not a man to made a fool of. He pressed the red button on his phone receiver to page Dr. Foulkes.

"Yes sir?" Foulkes asked him, wondering what the director wanted her for.

"Dr. Foulkes, if you were a early twenties woman on the lam, where would you go?" he asked her point-blank. Laroche was not the type to sugar-coat things.

The scientist looked baffled at his question and couldn't think of an immediate answer at first. She was in her mid-thirties now, twenties seemed so long ago. "Honestly, director, I wouldn't know."

Laroche didn't say a word at first as he drank more of his coffee. "You're fired."

The woman's eyeballs could have popped out of her skull at his sudden dismissal of her. "You're joking. _How the hell_ are you firing me when I've made more advancements than-,"

"Foulkes. Out. Now," and he swiveled his chair so the back of his head faced her, done talking to her. Foulkes stood there in shock, not registering her firing until she finally turned on her heel and cursed under her breath. Laroche wasn't terribly bothered. The director had work to do and that included tracking down Girl Doomsday. He knew Marilla Cain was out there somewhere and he was going to get her back to NSURF no matter how many people were fired or how many lies he had to tell. After all, she was a danger to mankind if left unchecked.

* * *

Tony Stark was thankful not to be Nick Fury's lapdog as he began drawing up plans for a continued restoration of Stark Tower, so damn happy to have his peace of mind with the Avengers on hiatus until the world decided to get in trouble again, and he hoped that would be a long time from now. Rubbing his recently trimmed facial hair, the CEO of Stark Industries wanted to restore his building to not just its former glory but really raise the torch. Technically, Stark Tower was about 80% rebuilt and most of the Stark Industries employees had come back to work, but Tony was constantly upgrading and changing. Therefore, Stark Industries should be constantly changing and upgrading.

"Tony, Bruce is on his way up," The beautiful Pepper Potts told him as she pressed a chaste kiss on her boyfriend's cheek. Tony turned around and planted a big one on her lips, not satisfied with that Sunday school kiss. He then returned to his blueprints, adjusting the glasses on his face.

"Perfect. I needed an actual smart person around here, aside from you of course," he quickly spoke to give his lady some credit. At least 15% credit.

Pepper wasn't too impressed with his last minute addition but accepted it as she winked at him and began looking over Tony's plans. "Tony, half of this is impossible."

"Not impossible," he held up his finger to correct her, "It will happen and it _will_ be possible."

He could be so stubborn and bull-headed but that was partially why Pepper was head over heels for him. As she stood closer to him, Tony wrapped his arm around her waist in a suggestive manner as he kept his hand on the blueprints.

"Am I interrupting something?" Bruce Banner's voice ruined the moment as Tony quickly retracted his arm from his girlfriend's side. "I can come back later."

"Bruce!" Pepper greeted the scientist first, in her friendly voice as Tony left his work station to meet up with his newest best friend. "I'm glad you could join us for lunch. Tony really needs to get outside more. He's been cooped up in this broken tower for over a month."

"It's fine," Dr. Banner dismissed it, "I guess I need to get out just as much as he does."

"My main man," Tony walked over to his friend as he gave him an earnest grin. The two brilliant men were a perfect match in science brothers heaven. Even Pepper felt a slight waver of jealousy at how quickly and how close the two men were. Both smart, both had a similar vein of humor (although Bruce was more self-deprecating while Tony raised himself on a pedestal) and generally just got along ever since they met at the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Pepper remembered that Tony would often talk about the good doctor and his amazing research as well as his condition.

"So, I heard Pepper's paying for lunch?" Bruce eyed her and spoke in a tone that even she was unsure if he was being serious or not. Tony found this hilarious, of course.

"Um, no. I do not remembering saying that at all," the strawberry-blonde woman folded her arms across her chest. Bruce noticed she sported a large diamond encrusted ring on her hand but refrained from saying anything.

"Yeah, where'd you say you wanted to eat at? Cassidy Jovani's?" Tony couldn't remember the name. Frankly, thoughts of shawarma were swimming around his head. He would totally buy out that shawarma place but Pepper talked him out of it.

Pepper exhaled, her boyfriend mangling the Italian language just to annoy her. "It's Casa di Giovanni. Authentic Italian and everything. Marilyn and I went there last week, it's delicious!" Obviously Pepper had not experienced the wonders of shawarma and gyros, much to Tony and Bruce's disappointment.

"I'll go if she's buying," Bruce shrugged. For being a world renown scientist, he was renown-ly broke. He hadn't spent much living in Calcutta and now that he was back in a first world country, it wasn't exactly easy going back to his usual job. Plus, being a giant rage monster kind of hurt his salary just a little bit.

Tony pouted before finally agreeing to accompany his girlfriend and best friend to this new restaurant that Pepper raved about. Personally, Shawarma Palace was the place to be at. Since the Avengers ate there, the small deli had seen triple in sales. All thanks to Tony Stark, of course.

As the three left the under-renovations Stark Tower, Pepper asked how Bruce was doing since they saw him last. Which was two days ago.

"Not much. Just, you know, staying angry all the time so I don't turn into the other guy," he nonchalantly said. Pepper hadn't expected that answer as Tony began asking Bruce questions about how the Other Guy was doing, which wasn't exactly a comfortable subject to talk about still. Granted, Tony Stark had greatly helped with the usually introverted man into talking more and even going out but there were just some topics Bruce didn't want to discuss.

"Here it is. We just sit at a table out on the patio here and we'll be served," Pepper lead the way as the three of them found a small round table under a red umbrella. Pepper sat in between Tony and Bruce, expecting service as soon as possible.

"Bo-_ring_," Tony fake a yawned. "I bet we'd already have shawarma if we went to-,"

"Tony, stop talking about shawarma for once," Pepper shut him up as the hostess approached their table and poured them some water and handed them menus. Pepper opened hers, scanning for the dish she tried last time as Tony used the menu as a fan.

"Benvenuto a Casa di Giovanni! Your waitress will be here momentarily," the Mediterranean beauty told them as she left, Tony nudging Bruce's arm with the menu as the man made a suggestive gesture when the hostess left their table.

"Mmm, the lasagna sounds delicious but I haven't tried the clam linguini dish," Pepper spoke to herself, obviously more excited about the restaurant than Bruce or Tony.

"If all the women here look like her, then I wouldn't mind coming back," Tony spoke, Pepper rolling her eyes. "Make a good impression, Brucie. You're not getting any younger."

"Thanks, Tony," Bruce sarcastically said, holding back the comment that Tony wasn't exactly a young guy either as the gamma radiation expert caught himself looking at his glass of water. The quick memory of Rilla offering her water to him suddenly popped up and he wasn't so sure why. He hadn't seen Rilla since the day they all said bye to each other. He often wondered how the other Avengers were doing. He knew Thor wouldn't be popping up anytime soon but he kind of missed them.

Their waitress finally walked over to them, wearing a white blouse, black slacks and a little black tie. She was rather slight in stature and sported a blonde pixie cut. "Hello, I'm Rilla and I'll be your wai..."

Pepper, Tony and Bruce looked up from their menus to find their waitress with her jaw nearly open as she dropped her little notepad, freezing up and becoming speechless at the sight of them. Pepper didn't recognize her as immediately as Tony and Bruce did though. Their waitress had different hair color but she was bony, thin and had those hazel eyes that Tony would know from anywhere. He was surprised to no longer see that half-shaven side of her head though.

"Rilla?" Bruce asked her as Rilla snapped out of her moment and hushed him. "What are you doing here?"

"I knew the recession was bad but I didn't think S.H.I.E.L.D. was already cutting agents," Tony said without skipping a beat, no longer interested in the menu as he rested his chin on his hand. "Also, you look _great_ as a blonde."

Rilla cringed, making sure no one was around to hear them as she quickly pulled up a chair to sit next to them. "What are you all doing here?" she harshly whispered to all three of them.

"Lunch?" Pepper answered.

"Are you on some sort of mission?" Tony asked her, "because I'm pretty sure that guy over there is a mob boss," and he pointed to a portly man with chest hair and bright gold chains dangling in his shirt collar.

Rilla sighed as she shook her head. "No, that's my boss and this isn't a mission, I'm working."

Bruce somehow looked disappointed and Rill avoided directly facing him as she rubbed the back of her neck, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure her boss didn't catch her not taking their orders. She picked up her notepad and pretended to jot their order down.

"Working?" Pepper seemed concerned. "Did S.H.I.E.L.D. not offer you a permanent position?"

Rilla ran her fingers through her hair, tucking the pen behind her ear. "Look, this is a bad time to talk. I get off at six. Maybe then-,"

"_Che cosa stai facendo?_" the older man with the gold chains stood up from his seat and nearly stormed over to their little table, his face reddening. "_Mi dispiace per questa cameriera insolente._ Rilla, _sei licenziata._"

Rilla once again dropped her notepad as she stood there, her face burning from anger as well as humiliation. This was the fourth job in three months that she had been fired from and she had enough of it as she ripped off her black tie and tossed it in front of her boss' face, not giving a shit at this point.

"I didn't want to be a _stupid_ waitress anyway," she shook her fists at her sides as she stormed out of the patio, leaving behind an awkward Pepper, a highly amused Tony Stark and a confused but also amused Bruce.

"Looks like it's Shawarma Palace," in the end Tony Stark finally got his way as he quickly caught up to the fuming Rilla, bringing along a disapproving Pepper and Bruce as he tried to convince the recently fired Rilla to join them.

"I'm not hungry," Rilla folded her arms across her chest, angrily looking away.

"You could at least just come along, I haven't seen you in a long time," Bruce coughed to make a correction, "_We_ haven't seen anyone since then."

Rilla lowered her shoulders as her arms dropped to her sides, sighing as she finally agreed to eat lunch with them. Rilla hadn't seen anyone in three months aside from Director Fury. She knew everyone was mainly off the grid out of respect for privacy and because after saving the world, people needed a damn break.

Marilla Cain, however, was not having an easy break as she began to tell Tony, Bruce and Pepper what happened to her in the three month span.

"That was my fourth job," Rilla placed her chin between her hands, smushing her face with her fingers as her elbows rested on the table. "I just can't seem to keep them."

Pepper frowned, feeling sorry for the young woman as she popped a pita chip in her mouth. "What were the other three?"

"Barista, secretary, kennel assistant."

Tony had conjured up a funny mental image of Rilla working at a Starbucks, levitating cups of grande venti no whip macchiato drinks. Pepper felt bad for her, noticing how quickly the blonde woman had just given up on her jobs.

"I can't really imagine you taking phone calls," Bruce looked over at Rilla, wondering how she even ended up as a secretary at one point.

Rilla gave a slight smile to Bruce as she turned her attention to the owner of the shawarma joint greeting Tony by name and handing him his veal and turkey shawarma in a deli basket. Tony began to chow down.

"I'm actually in school now. It's just community college but..." the woman trailed off, feeling embarrassed that all these smart, professional people were surrounding her and here she was, not even able to hold down a job to pay for schooling. "I figure if I get the credits then, you know, I can transfer."

"Oh Rilla, that's a lot on your plate," Pepper told her, sipping down her soda as she looked at the young woman with interest. "It's nice to know you have a plan. From what Tony told me, I thought you'd stick with S.H.I.E.L.D," she added.

_Jeez, thanks._ Rilla rolled her eyes at Tony. In retrospect, perhaps balancing school and her secret identity as Girl Doomsday wasn't such a great idea. Director Fury had set up her own file as Rilla Marie Cain and enrolled her in one of New York City's community college. She liked her classes well enough but she didn't exactly have any friends.

"College, _hah_," Tony remarked, a haughty smile towards his friends. "I was making circuit boards and network systems before _you_ were even born," he poked Rilla in the rib. "No offense, Bruce, but school wasn't exactly my thing."

Bruce held up his hands, a lopsided smile on the scientist's face. "None taken. I never understood why I had to take 15th century medieval literature for my astrophysics major," he shrugged. "Unless I describe all of the electromagnetic spectrum in iambic pentameter," and he smiled inwardly, finding himself funny.

Rilla gave a small laugh at Bruce's joke, momentarily lighting up a bit until she rubbed her eyebrows with her thumb and index finger, back to being stressed out over losing her fourth job. "I just want to live normally after living underground like a hermit for four years," and her shoulders slumped.

"You know, instead of moping, you could just ask me for a job," Tony licked his fingers to taste the last bit of shawarma on his hands, a single brow raised as he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders.

Rilla lifted up her head, her ears slightly perked up when he mentioned 'job'. "I'm not a scientist. Or an engineer. Or anything. I'm a broke college student and former prisoner that can control gravity. That doesn't exactly look great on a resume, you know."

"Forget resumes!" Tony lifted up his hands in an 'I don't give a shit' gesture as Pepper nudged her boyfriend, wondering what he meant by 'job'. "I'm hiring you right now!"

She blinked out of confusion, surprise and even a little bit overjoyed. She and Tony had not exactly started on the right foot when they first met as team mates, and really they weren't best friends forever, but it was hard to not like the guy, even for all his flaws and annoying habits. Plus, he was giving her a job so that was just another point to the scoreboard.

Bruce was happy for her as well as surprised his best friend would just hand Rilla a job. Then again, they were Avengers. And the Avengers were like a dysfunctional sitcom family, except with superpowers and weapons.

Still, it was a better family than Rilla cared to remember, not really wanting to think about her own parents. They were probably still living out somewhere in Kentucky, pretending that Marilla Cain never existed.

* * *

Sandra Cain was a widow, and a very sad one at that. She had been uprooted from her home in Virginia to Kentucky and now she was alone in the big city. In her small one room apartment, there was a potted plant on the windowsill. She really needed to water that as she went over to the sink and began to fill up the watering can with tap water.

On the windowsill there were two framed pictures. One picture was of her wedding day, the happy married couple posing for the camera. William was such a handsome man. The next picture was a small school photo of her daughter, smiling wide. She had one tooth missing and her brown hair was shiny and perfectly brushed. Sandra absently stared at two frames side by side, still pouring water into the flower pot until it started flooding, snapping her out of her reverie.

Sandra Cain was a widow, and a very sad one at that.

* * *

"So, what exactly am I doing?" Rilla tucked a pen behind her ear, following Tony around the nearly finished Stark Tower with a clipboard in hand. She had just zipped over to her new job from class, with formulas and equations still buzzing in her head. She had a solid average in high school but college was a whole other level of work. She almost wished she could be kicking Loki's butt rather than solving for 'x'.

"Rilla, you are now my new personal assistant. Well, part-time anyway," he emphasized 'personal' as he suddenly stopped mid-step as he handed a bunch of plans to his new personal assistant. That's right. Hopefully Rilla would stick around this. His last two personal assistants were Pepper and Natasha, and Rilla had no plans of dating her boss or being a super secret spy anytime soon. Right now, the twenty-three year old wanted to just survive working for her team mate and new boss. Easier said than done.

"I thought Pepper was your personal secretary?" she asked him, still following Tony around. Funny to think a few months ago they were all working together and now, they were literally working together.

"More walking, less talking," Tony faked a stern tone as he tilted his head towards her, raising both his dark brows and then turning around as he continued to give orders left and right. Even though she was wearing comfortable flats, Rilla had a hard time keeping up with him. He was older than her and still in better shape than she would ever be. "Well, she is, but you can do all the grunt work. You're only _part-time_," he smirked.

Rilla rolled her eyes as she scrunched up her lips. Pepper got to be around Tony more and granted, she was damn good at her job having once been CEO of Stark Industries but did Tony Stark really need two personal assistants? She held her tongue. Last thing she needed was to be fired.

"Run this down to the lab. It's two floors down, just use the buttons on the elevator," he explained how to use elevator buttons like she were a monkey as he continued to walk around one of the many offices that were part of Stark Industries.

"I know how to press buttons," she muttered, although she could not stay annoyed at her new boss. Likeable charisma and all that. She entered the elevator and hit the button for the lab floor as the blonde quietly tapped her foot to bide her time for a few seconds before the doors opened.

Damn, there were a lot of shiny chrome scientific instruments. It was almost like being in the lab on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier again, except there were more people dressed in lab coats Some looked at her when she entered the laboratory but they quickly focused back onto their work. Rilla gripped the papers in her hand, wondering who to give them to. Tony had neglected to be specific, as if he expected her to read his mind.

_I'm gravitokinetic not telepathic_, she thought as she awkwardly walked from station to station, almost wanting to interrupt someone to give them the papers. After a few minutes, Rilla found a lone female scientist she could approach.

"Um, hey, I've got some plans from Stark and uh, you guys could use them." So much for being professional as Rilla waited for the woman to turn around and take the plans from her.

"Sure, I know who to give them to," and the scientist turned around as Rilla's hazel eyes enlarged in a mix of fear and disgust.

It was_ her_. Dr. Trina Foulkes, the scientist who held her in captivity at NSURF. The same good doctor who would inject weird mixtures into her bloodstreams and record the results. Her left arm began to hurt, remembering all the poking and prodding.

"Uh, I've got to go," and she sped out of the lab like her feet were on fire, dropping the papers as she mashed elevator buttons and impatiently waited for the doors to close.

"What's her problem?" one physicist whispered to the other.

Foulkes bent down to pick up the papers, her head still whirling from having that weird woman run from her. The scientist frowned as she scratched her head. The new assistant reminded her of someone but she was too busy to remember as she gave the plans to her supervisor.

.

.

Panting heavily, the young woman was still in the elevator, having pressed a random multitude of buttons that were taking her everywhere but the floor she had just been on.

_Did she recognize me? Why is that woman even here? How was she even hired?_ Hundreds of questions were rapidly shooting off in her head, each one more aggravating than the next. She stretched her mouth, gritting her teeth a bit as the elevator doors opened and closed on every floor that had its button pressed. Rilla allowed herself to try and unwind a bit, not wanting to send her blood boiling through the roof.

"Ugh!" she stood in the corner of the elevator, her back leaning against the wall as she lowered her head. What was next? Director Laroche as a janitor? Granted, that would be pretty funny if she weren't so angry at the moment. She folded her arms tightly across her chest, resting her head against the wall of the elevator as she closed her eyes. She would have to tell Tony about this, explain to him that it was a horrible idea to keep Foulkes around. Rilla wasn't sure whether Foulkes recognized her but she did not want to take that chance.

"Rilla?" The elevator doors parted as Rilla perked up at hearing her name as she saw a familiar face and for a split second, she forgot about seeing Dr. Foulkes.

"Oh, hi Bruce."

* * *

Shit's gon' down. I'm glad people dislike Laroche so much, that means he's doing his job hahah. Also, Bruce. Yes. Finally. I like to develop relationships slowly and Bruce and Rilla both have tons of issues so don't expect fluffy wuffy times immediately but it is coming, don't worry.

As always, thanks for the reviews. Please comment, review, give me some crit or whatever. I strive to make sure Rilla stays likeable as an OC as well as make the canon characters stay in character.


	10. Needles and Clipboards

Marvel and the Avengers aren't owned by me. I wish though :P

Hi guys! Sorry about the wait. But here's another chapter! Foulkes becomes an important character. She ain't perfect but she's definitely "nicer" than Laroche is. Also, Bruce. Yay!

* * *

**Needles and Clipboards**

Dr. Trina Foulkes hadn't found it hard to find another job after Director Laroche fired her. She had a PhD, two Masters and already worked at one important underground federal facility. So when she found an opening in the scientific innovation field at Stark Industries, she applied, was interviewed and easily hired. After all, who would say no to her? She had yet to meet Mr. Stark in person but she had heard many great- and strange- things about her new boss.

Foulkes did not want to dwell on the past but who the hell fired someone for not answering such a rhetorical question? Foulkes had come to respect Laroche over the six years she worked at NSURF but really, in the past couple of months Laroche had become more bitter, angrier and possibly even more obsessed with finding Girl Doomsday. As the scientist gave the papers to her supervisor, Foulkes knew why her ex-boss was so dead-set on finding Marilla Cain.

Marilla Cain had escaped. With the help of the untouchable Director Fury, the mutant woman was allowed out of the facility and back into the real world. With no traceable way to track Cain down, it drove the NSURF director mad just trying to find her. Laroche was a search-and-destroy kind of man, going the direct route rather than cut corners. It was admirable at first but the way he took it out on his employees...

The woman cleared her throat as she returned to her desk, adjusting the glasses on her face as she looked down on all the blueprints and technical drawings in a neat pile. It reminded Foulkes of her earlier years at NSURF, how her desk used to be covered with needles and clipboards. Her office was adjacent to Cain's chamber, a one-way mirror used as an observation lens into her room so Foulkes could watch her every move.

All Stark Industries knew was that Foulkes was a damn good scientist, which was true. However, her new employer was unaware that Foulkes was quite familiar with experimentation and blood-drawing, using Cain as a guinea pig to figure out how mutant powers could be cured with vaccines. She was the one who developed the visor that had been attached to Cain's head in order to suppress her gravitokinesis. Foulkes shook her head as she pushed her NSURF days into the recesses of her mind and resumed her work.

* * *

The elevator doors split as Bruce saw a sliver of the elevator's sole occupant. As the doors fully opened, Bruce was pleasantly surprised to find his Avenger team mate in the elevator, although the look on the petite woman's face suggested that perhaps he shouldn't look so happy to see her. Rilla looked incredibly pale and her back was tightly pressed against the wall, as if avoiding a large presence in the room. A large presence that, for once, wasn't him.

"Rilla?" he asked, concerned as the brown haired man carefully walked into the elevator, not wanting to upset her.

"Oh, hi Bruce," Rilla eased up slightly, a vague smile stretching her face before it disappeared. The girl obviously had been preoccupied with other thoughts; Bruce could tell by her eyes shifting restlessly. Bruce may be an astrophysicist but he took a semester of psychology back in college and remembered some body language tics.

"You look like you just saw a ghost," he paused and then chuckled lightly at his flat joke. Bruce liked to think of himself as funny, like a diet Tony Stark.

"Uh...you _could_ say that," Rilla relaxed a bit, no longer leaning on the wall as the two stood there in the elevator, a slight awkward air around them. She wrung her hands out of habit as she gave her good friend a stretched smile.

Bruce wasn't the type to beat around the bush and he could see that Rilla had a name on the tip of her tongue. Whoever this 'ghost' she just saw was obviously bothering the young woman.

"Spit it out," he bluntly asked. Rilla blinked a few times, surprised Bruce would say something suddenly to her. He looked concerned enough. "There's something wrong, isn't there?"

The blonde exhaled softly as her hazel eyes drifted from the carpet of the elevator back to her friend. As she opened her mouth, the doors opened back to Tony's residence as the young woman closed her lips, straightening up when she saw her boss. Bad timing, right?

"I delivered the papers, Tony," she nodded as she spoke, quickly exiting the elevator as Bruce was left standing there. Tony noticed both his Avenger team mates as he gave his science buddy a warm smile. He acknowledged Rilla's performance as the young woman stood by, waiting for any future orders.

Bruce stepped out of the elevator as he made his way into Tony's penthouse suite, stuffing his hands in his khaki pants pockets, looking pretty content where he was standing. Rilla glanced over at him a few times, an unassuming smile on her face as she quickly turned her head when Bruce looked over to her.

"So _I_ was thinking shawarma for lunch," Tony excitedly spoke. Pepper rolled her eyes, praying for the day her boyfriend would get sick of eating spit-roasted meat. "How about a good man-to-man lunch with my best friend Bruce?" Tony smirked at his buddy as Bruce shrugged, keeping his dimpled smile on. "No offense, ladies, but our conversations sometimes involve too many big words for you two."

"Have fun, boys," Pepper waved them off as Tony led his friend back to the elevator. Rilla found herself staring at the back of Bruce's head as the two men left the penthouse suite.

_Hard to believe he's in his 40s_, Rilla absently thought as she smacked that comment out of her head. What was she _thinking_? Bruce was her team mate, and a giant green monster guy. _Just because he has cute curly hair_- _Cut that out! What the hell is wrong with me?_

Pepper noticed Rilla's face contorting with anxiety as she put her hand on the young woman's shoulder. "Rilla, are you feeling okay? You looked pale when you exited the elevator..."

The blonde shook her head as she faked a wide grin. "No, I'm fine. Maybe I could use a coffee though. Where does Tony keep the coffee maker?"

Pepper raised up her hands, indicating she had no idea. "Knowing him, he probably has a built-in coffee drip in that suit of his."

Rilla snorted, feeling a little better now that Pepper was joking around. Rilla really liked Pepper and respected her for putting up with Tony Stark for as long as she had.

_Love does crazy things I guess. __Not that I'd know. _

* * *

Bruce was quietly eating his lamb shawarma as Tony rattled on about a new article that explored the open possibilities of colonizing on the moon. Bruce really enjoyed listening to Tony talk; how exuberant and excited he could be about his favorite subjects. Even though Tony wasn't always the easiest to get along with, he was incredibly loyal at the heart and inherently a good guy.

"So, if I invest in this technology and put the plans in production, we could possibly colonize the moon by 2040. I'm thinking Stark City," Tony waited for Bruce to give his input.

"Hn? Don't you already have Stark City?" Bruce teased lightly, meaning that New York City was already Tony's. Tony raised a dark brow at his friend, getting the joke.

"Ooh, you're spicy today. Almost got a little bit of Hulk there, except with less grunting," Tony shot back.

The two men exchanged friendly insults across the table as the waitress refilled their soda drinks, eager to please their best customer. After a while, Bruce became quiet again which prompted Tony to ask him what was up.

"Rilla's been acting odd," Bruce finally admitted, looking concerned for his friend as Tony's interest seemed hardly piqued.

"She's _always_ odd. Nothing new. After all she's a gravity manipulating, Armageddon-wielding sort of girl," Tony flatly stated with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "She's not half-bad though. Eager to learn, eager to please...some guys like that."

"No, I mean," Bruce hesitated, not really appreciating the last few words Tony said. "I think someone startled her at work. She was practically clinging to the elevator wall when I walked in."

Tony looked confused then shook his head. "She did live like a troll for the past four years. Did you know I had to teach how to operate a Stark Tablet? _Unbelievable_."

"That's not her fault."

The genius philanthropist playboy sipped on his Pepsi drink as his dark eyes looked straight into Bruce's, making Bruce feel uncomfortable as a smirk grew on Tony's face. Bruce gulped. Tony only gave him that look when he suspected something.

"Brucie, what's with the sudden interest in our dear Marilla?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Nothing, nothing," Bruce said dismissively as he chomped down the rest of his shawarma as to avoid saying anything to Tony. The conversation took a left as Tony returned to the subject of Stark Industries' next new thing which would "send Apple back to the tree" but Bruce was only half-listening.

* * *

I know this chapter is a bit short but as you can see, our dear little Rilla is having some ~*feelings*~. Don't worry, I'm not gonna glue Brucie boy and Rilla together like that x3

As always, let me know your thoughts and opinions and if everyone's in character. It's been a while since I updated so I think I just need more creative juice flowing haha. I'll probably edit this chapter later.

Next chapter: Rilla confronts Foulkes. Dis gon be gud.


	11. Last Century's Letters

The Avengers (both movie and comic book characters) do not belong to me. I'm just a fan.

I know, unacceptable that I haven't updated this story in a long time. To be honest, I lost the drive for this story. However, I've been getting my mojo back and I have fresh new ideas for Rilla, Bruce and the rest of our Avenger buddies.

Sorry for the shortness but hey, an update is still an update! Plus, we get more Tony and Rilla interaction.

* * *

**Last Century's Letters**

Rilla chewed on the cap of her ballpoint pen, watching every single powerpoint slide flash before until she brought her pen tip to the page and wrote down the information. The dim lighting of the lecture room lulled Rilla into a near-sleep, having to jerk back her head as she let out a small, inaudible yawn as she scribbled down the notes in the margins of her notebook. She felt embarrassed, hoping her professor didn't catch her in a micro nap.

When Rilla wasn't Tony Stark's personal monkey, she was at Duke Community College in good ol' New York City, taking her general education classes and trying to narrow down what exactly she wanted to do with her life aside from being Girl Doomsday. She had been compensated nicely for her contribution in taking down the Chitauri invasion and had even been offered a permanent job working in S.H.I.E.L.D. but Rilla turned it down.

She wanted an education, something she had been robbed of while imprisoned at NSURF. It was her only chance of normalcy, a way for Rilla to concentrate on something other than levitation and space rocks.

"Can anyone tell me how modern science owes to Copernicus' research?" Professor Calthorn asked the half-asleep class, aware that the lighting of the classroom was the reason for the lack of raised hands. He took it upon himself to call out someone's name instead and picked on poor Rilla. "Miss Cain, care to tell us?"

The blonde hesitated to answer but swallowed her anxiety and answered, "The Scientific Revolution?"

Calthorn seemed pleased with her answer as he nodded, "Yes, Miss Cain. With the publication of _De revolutionibus orbium coelestium_, or _On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, _Copernicus helped spark the Scientific Revolution that shortly followed the end of the Renaissance..."

A small swell of pride grew in Rilla. This History of Science class was certainly fascinating. She wondered if Tony or Bruce were fluent in this subject as she shook her head. _Of course they would be. They're both brilliant and smart. I have to work my ass off to just sound intelligent_, her smile faded into a glum look as Calthorn continued onto the next slide, a small picture of Copernicus' portrait and bulleted points about his research and life.

The bell rang and students began to pack up their belongings. Rilla stuffed her notebook into her messenger bag, adjusting her beret as she slung the strap over her shoulder. Before she left the door, she heard Calthorn call her name.

"Yes, Professor?" she asked, wondering why he wanted her to stay back. "Is there something wrong?"

"Oh no, no," Calthorn held his hands up. "I just wanted to quickly talk to you about your work in my class."

Rilla gulped. Had she done that poorly? The mutant pressed her brows together, preparing herself for Calthorn's criticisms that he was so fond of dishing out. However, the look on the professor's face suggested otherwise.

"Miss Cain, have you considered a major in history? Your essay on Andreas Vesalius was quite impressive. I can tell you didn't just write it at the very last minute unlike so many students," he praised her.

She blinked, not expecting a gold star from one of the most strict professors. "Uh, to be honest, I'm not really sure what I want to do," she admitted. "I just like history..."

Calthorn considered her input as he handed back Rilla's essay paper. "Well, you should consider going into the field. I'd be more than happy to recommend you to the history professor at NYU," and he bowed his head and left the classroom, leaving a very much confused but inspired young woman in the empty hall.

_I hadn't thought about history._ Rilla mulled over the potential of majoring in such an extensive subject as she peered down at her graded essay. **A-**. A wide grin stretched her face, so relieved that staying up past 3am the last few days paid off.

"History, huh?" she muttered as she left the classroom with a spring in her step.

* * *

The next day, Rilla was humming a nameless tune as she assorted the mail for Tony Stark. She actually hadn't seen her boss anywhere and she considered using her company cell phone to call Pepper but she decided against it, needing to finish her grunt work before Mr. Iron Man jetted in.

There was still the issue of Foulkes in the same building as her and Rilla's good mood plummeted. The very woman who invented the visor that had been attached to her head 24-7...who treated her like a guinea pig, a test subject instead of a scared young woman with feelings. Foulkes was one step closer to Laroche and frankly she wasn't sure who was worse: a emotionless workaholic or a sadistic facility director. Bit of a toss up there.

_If Foulkes is here_, she shuddered at the upcoming thought. _Maybe Laroche knows where I am. And if he knows where I am-_

"Rilla, Rilla, Rils," Tony chanted in a silly sing-song voice as the blonde woman turned on her heel to see her overconfident boss standing in the middle of the room. Rilla scooted letters aside as she wore a smile on her face. "Still sorting out last century's letters?"

She shrugged. "Not everyone uses email. I didn't."

Tony scoffed. "That's because you lived like a Neanderthal. My Stark tablets are selling through the roof and soon email will be obsolete when I launch my inter-connectable messaging system by next summer!"

Rilla rolled her eyes with a slight tilt of a smile. "I'm pretty sure that's not a word, Tony."

He arched his brows at her in a playful but still serious manner. "It's _Mister_ Stark at work, young lady."

With the subject of dying arts and obsolete things, Rilla automatically thought of Steve. She wondered how her straight-laced hero friend was doing and how well he was adjusting to the twenty-first century. Her silence must have bothered Tony as he snapped her out of it.

"Chop chop, I've got some more things for you to do," he pressed his palms together. "By the way, created any black holes lately?"

Rilla glared at him. He knew it was a sore subject for her to talk about after the near-disastrous incident months ago. She glowered at him, her neck turning hot as she adjusting the collar of her blouse as way to fidget with her hands. "No."

"Just asking, Rils," and he adopted the new nickname for her. Anything was better than Dooms. As the CEO and his little armageddon-wielding assistant went down the elevator, Tony began bothering her about her classes at school.

"I'm doing pretty well," Rilla answered blandly. Tony had a way of knocking down things and she was worried that if she brought up her professor's suggestion of majoring in history, he would laugh.

"No, I just find it _hilarious_ that you'd rather be in school than say, kicking ass on the street. Isn't it the other way in comic books?" he smirked at her.

Rilla let out a small laugh, feeling comfortable around Tony again and momentarily forgetting about Foulkes. "I'm not really normal though, now am I?"

"Pft, you're not."

As the elevator floor dinged, the two stepped into a darkly lit observatory with amazing chrome machines and a huge blue wall covered in diagrams of constellations. Rilla was in awe of all the technological advancements; stuff that blew NSURF out of the water. Then again, Stark Industries was out of this world.

Tony took her reaction as a testament to his amazing-ness. "Like it huh?" he asked the gravitokinetic woman. "After our little run in with those nasty buggers, I've taken a personal interest in mapping out space. That's where _I_," and he bopped her on the nose, "need you."

Rilla immediately frowned. "Me?" She twitched her nose, annoyed that Tony could act immature but she couldn't.

He nodded. "I've been thinking that with your abilities to bring down space chunks, I could inspect meteorites and see if perhaps, there is

She took a few steps back as the color drained from her face. "That's _not_ a good idea. In fact, that is a horrible, _horrible_ idea! I can't just pluck any specific asteroid from space!" she raised her voice at him. "I still don't know how to control things and I've gotten rusty the past few months."

It was true. With the exception of manipulating gravity for the little things, Rilla had dared not exert herself much further. The black hole incident was stained in her mind and she was afraid something similar would happen again with a worse outcome.

Tony looked from side to side as he approached her again and his facial expression changed into an emotion Rilla didn't expect. Sure, the guy had a lithium battery heart of gold but he had layers of douchebag and narcissism as well; facets of his personality Rilla had learned to get used to.

"I won't pressure you again," and quickly morphed back into his regular self as Tony dragged Rilla along for an impromptu tour of his new astronomy department of Stark Industries.

Even with Tony constantly talking, Rilla kept thinking about her powers and felt a twinge of guilt when she turned down Tony's offer. A little part of her wanted to help, wanted to explore what exactly was out there. But she restrained herself as she half-listened to Tony explain every detail of his microscope thingy-mabobber.

* * *

Sorry for the shortness of this chapter but I'm planning for a lot of cool new events such as Steve making an appearance, Foulkes' story, Rilla's mom and of course, our lovely Bruce. So hold tight!


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